


Moving On

by Jenni_Snake



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenni_Snake/pseuds/Jenni_Snake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their unceremonious parting, Garak and Julian each carry on with their own lives. Garak’s return to the post-Dominion disaster that is Cardassia is not as welcoming as he expected. Lost and adrift, Julian contemplates that it might be time to move on from the emptiness that Deep Space Nine has become for him. But despite their distance, they can’t shake the other from their mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had been years since Garak had done anything like this. His feet uncertain in the dirt of the alley, he himself the only thing lit by the streetlamp under which he stood, everything else around him hidden from sight. He trailed his fingers over his bottom lip, then nervously around his collar, over the subtle cut of the fabric, a secret sign to those who knew what to look for from those who knew how to show it. The sense of excitement was heightened by the fear of rejection, that the strange eyes on him could just as easily turn away and leave the darkness empty again.

It had been the crunch of another set of footsteps that he had heard, not hurried or measured like someone passing by, but of someone who had stopped. Someone else who knew how to play this game. He stepped out of the light’s reach, heart beating quickly in that moment of uncertainty, beat even stronger as a hand took his - a connection.

The stranger’s fingers were thin, and he let Garak feel them for a moment before stealing them away and putting his arm around his shoulder instead, letting out a laugh at words unsaid, to make the interaction seem one of camaraderie, instead of the clandestine companionship they both sought. Despite the emptiness of the streets, they kept up a friendly demeanour, caution first and foremost in their minds, even though their desire pulsed just below the surface, nearly electric through their touch.

They walked for longer than seemed necessary, Garak following, unaware of where they were going, but never with any hesitation. He would have walked the rest of the night just to be close to someone, to have the weight and the warmth of another against him.

The building they entered finally was dimly lit for the late hour, only a strip of red lighting along the walls showing them their way. The lift was the same, but Garak could see his companion for the first time. He was tall and slender, and although grey hair lightened his temples and the skin creased at the corners of his eyes, desire shone youthfully in them.

The moment the doors slid shut, he pulled Garak near. The kiss was brief but deep, a culminating moment, as if they had spent the entire evening growing closer, instead of walking in furtive silence. It ended when the doors slid open again.

Near the end of a long corridor, he was ushered into an apartment, drawn into the bedroom. His companion undressed himself and Garak alternately, hungrily but not greedily, passionately but without aggression, tender in his every move. Caressing Garak’s arms and back, he removed his shirt, he caressed his backside as he removed his trousers, until they were naked against each other, pulled down into the bed that felt as if they had been sharing it forever.

Garak couldn’t remember the last time he had been this close to anyone, pressed up against them, under them, in them. Their lovemaking was by turns vigorous and slow, rough and delicate. Everything they did or wanted done was through a silent understanding, for fear that the walls, even now, had ears.

They didn't shy away from each other, and his companion fell asleep on his chest, their fingers entwined. Garak closed his eyes but didn’t allow himself sleep, upholding his end of the unspoken agreement that they would both awake alone in the morning. As the intimate stranger slept, he rolled away, and Garak kissed his back before pulling the cover over him and going through the tedium of dressing himself. He pulled on a sock, then sat for one idealistic moment, imagining not having to do this, not having to leave, being able to just enjoy the heady view over the city through the window before him each and every night. To hear the deep breathing of someone beside him, and wake up beside them in the morning, not having to scurry out before dawn.

The desire still hadn’t faded as he slipped out into the dark city street again and glanced back at the building he had just left. For a moment he thought he saw the very window among the hundreds that darkened the facade. Then he turned and walked away from a life that could have never been. 

His steps crackled loudly on the dirt, the stoic stars seemed to buzz with their stillness. When he reached his door, the thought that had driven him there - to be in his own bed - was as useless as it had always been. Every time he returned felt like the very first moment he had set foot in the house again: that this was not his, that he was not welcome.

And so, as he had every night since his return, he settled into the chair where he had been allowed to read as a child, and pulled a thin blanket over himself.

And just as he had every night, he fell asleep with a book on his chest. But this time, his father’s volumes on the shelf remained untouched - this book had been gifted to him, an inscription in the front, as the young doctor had been fond of putting despite or perhaps in spite of Garak’s repeated protests.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as Julian saw Ezri out of the corner of his eye, his heart skipped guiltily and he stared hard at the food on the tray in front of him. Even with his head down, he could see her pause, turn, pause once more, and finally make her way to his table. She sat across from him without a word and tucked into her food. Looking up suspiciously, he eyed her as she ate in silence, his discomfort growing until he burst.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy!”

Fork still in hand, her face filled with pity.

“Oh, Julian,” she said. “Don’t do that. It’s been two weeks and neither of us has made any move to see the other. I don’t think we’re very invested in this.”

He tried to think of something to say, trying to both mask and express how he felt, but, lost in confusion, he just sighed.

“We could work on it,” he suggested feebly.

“Oh no, no, don’t do that either, please,” she sighed. “I swore I’d never say it because it seemed so patronizing, but I finally understand - there’s something to be said for age. You just seem very… young.”

Julian just laughed.

“I was going to say the same of you! But I suppose you do have a few centuries on me.”

“Well, Dax does - I’m still learning.”

“That must be fascinating…”

“It’s… it takes some getting used to. But it’s also quite amazing.”

Julian smiled and nodded as his awkwardness returned.

“So… should we make plans?”

“Julian, I’m old enough to know this really isn’t what either of us wants. Not the relationship, anyway. We could just carry on with the sex, if you wanted.”

She smiled simply while his jaw dropped a few times, but no words came out. She shook her head.

“I thought I had enough experience with humans, but you still end up surprising me.”

“And you me.” He cleared his throat, playing with his food. “So, is that more Dax or Ezri?”

“The confidence is from Dax; the desire, though, is Ezri’s.”

He didn’t know where to look as he blushed, and let out a genuine laugh.

”Anyway,” she continued, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Part of me wants to,” he admitted. “My more reserved human nature prevents me from doing so, however.”

Ezri shrugged.

“For now, anyway,” he added.

It was her turn to laugh. They both focused on their food for a moment, the pause less awkward, more natural as their discomfort dissipated.

“It must seem quite empty here for you now,” Ezri said, looking around at the crowd of people in the dining area. He followed her gaze, wondering how many people remained on the station that he could call friends. He didn’t even need one hand to count them.

“There have definitely been changes.”

“You feel alone?”

“I feel… left behind,” he said. “Like everyone else had an idea of what they wanted to do, and I was just here waiting for something that never came.”

“You don’t want to be here anymore, do you?”

He didn’t bother being surprised at her perceptiveness.

“I don’t,” he answered truthfully.

“So what’s keeping you here?”

“I wish I knew.”


	3. Chapter 3

When he had first arrived, Garak had stood on the street for a long time, under the expanse of a daylight sky, neither in exile nor in hiding. The living air and its dead dust sat on his skin and filled his lungs. The quiet rush of the outside was soft in his ears, distant in a way it had never been in the confinement of a space station. Tears burned the corners of his eyes as he smiled, scolding himself for being overjoyed at finally being back. A thrill went through him as he recalled his freedom now to go where he wanted, when he wanted. The sun's unfathomable light shone its colour over every surface.

Or what surfaces there were left. The once impressive skyline was now crumbled in large swathes. Behind it, where houses, libraries, schools once meandered through alleys and thousand-year old streets, there was a massive crater. Garak put a hand over his chest, unable to comprehend the loss that he saw before him, thinking irrationally that if he had returned sooner perhaps it would have reversed the fate of his planet. The silence struck him suddenly, even more so than the appearance of destruction; quite simply, there were less people now. Less lives surrounding him. For all of those he didn’t know, but who were inextricably a part of the life he had been granted to live again, he mourned.

As the sky began to darken he headed home.

The house felt smaller than he remembered, but he still found himself opening doors to rooms he never knew existed. It took him only a few days to make Mila's funeral arrangements, getting documents approved through different offices. It was a relatively easy process when compared to the attempt to get the power in the house registered back onto the main grid so he wasn't trying to live off of the small solar generator. Near the end of the week, after running from office to office without finding anyone who could fix, let alone who understood, the problem, he ended up bypassing the meter and messily hooking the electricity up himself. The planet seemed better equipped to cope with death now than with life.

Mila was cremated at the end of the week in an official room in the grey afternoon. He was the only person in attendance. He couldn’t bring himself to be sad about her in any greater capacity than as the presence and influence he had known her as growing up - caring, kind, sometimes strict, but a governess, a housekeeper. It was appropriate, and anything more than that no longer mattered.

Everything was resolved, just the way it should be, and then there was nothing left to take care of.


	4. Chapter 4

The lunch dates that he and Ezri had started keeping replaced something that Julian hadn't noticed he had been missing. It wasn’t quite the same as his time with Garak, but he tried not to compare it. Being around Ezri’s enthusiasm was infectious, and he needed that.

He had taken her question, idle as it may have been, to heart. There was nothing on _Deep Space Nine_ that he felt was compelling him to stay, and, just as he had always been to leave anywhere, he felt almost desperate to go.

“There’s been a posting,” he told her one lunch hour by way of starting the conversation.

“And hello to you, too,” she threw in for good measure, making him smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Hello. How are you?”

“Forget about that!” she said, leaning eagerly over her tray. “What about the position?”

“I applied. I got it.”

“That’s great! Isn’t that great?” she asked in response to his indifference.

“It’s far off,” he said, piercing some of the crisp, white leaves on his plate. “Nine months, I need to finish up my tour here, and the negotiations are ongoing with the other parties involved, but still…”

“It gives you something to work towards. A deadline. A promise of change.”

He nodded, taking a bite of food, and taking in the promenade wistfully. 

“You think it’s going to be hard to leave?”

“It’s been a long assignment. There are a lot of memories…”

“Not all easy ones, either.”

Julian leaned away from the table and dragged his hands over his face.

“What is it?” Ezri asked.

“Is it only humans who ask if someone wants to talk?”

“Probably. But I _know_ you want to talk. Or need to.”

He heaved a heavy sigh before he could speak.

“He left without saying goodbye.”

Ezri looked at him in confusion, trying to piece the information together.

“Did he? That doesn’t seem like him.”

It was Julian’s turn to give her a strange look.

”But even so, aren’t you in contact? You told me yourself you talk to each other at least once a week.”

“No, not Miles… I mean…”

He wanted to, but had difficulty saying the name out loud, leaving Ezri to guess as he was still tongue tied. It took her more than a moment, but it struck her suddenly.

“Garak?” she asked, half a question, half a revelation.

“He virtually disappeared,” he said, unable to stop himself, words pouring out, “and his shop - why would he just leave it unless he was coming back? Did he forget about it? Is he not going to do anything with it? I mean, it’s his - he was attached to it. How could he just abandon it?”

He stopped as he heard his own words, bashfully lowering his eyes.

“I’m not talking about myself…”

Ezri gave him a look full of pity, and he stared at his hands, upturned and slack in his lap.

”So you’ve been waiting for him.”

Opening his mouth to respond, Julian had to close it again when no words came.

“I didn’t know I had been. I didn’t know… I didn’t know he meant that much to me. I let him go. Let him go just like that. I didn’t say anything.”

“And now you feel like you’ve given up? Having taken another posting.”

Julian nodded slowly, only understanding his words as he uttered them.

”I might never see him again.”

“Nine months is a long time,” Ezri offered.

”Are you saying that as a counsellor or as a friend?”

She smiled awkwardly.

“It could be out of guilt.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving, too. I just found out. Three weeks from now - there’s a command position open on the Kiviuq.”

“That’s a Luna class… Deep space?”

“Reconnaissance.”

“I’m happy for you,” he said, a genuine smile taking hold.

“And you resent me for it, too.”

He shrugged.

“You’re the only person who’s been willing to talk to a sad sack of a naive, young doctor.”

”Not that sad. Not that young, either,” she added with a grin, making him laugh at himself.

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“I suppose. I mean, it’s a lovely ship, Captain Gul’aq is very experienced. It will be a good first…” She trailed off, and paused only a moment before erupting, “Julian, I'm ecstatic! I can’t wait!”

“And worried,” he added, wondering when he had gotten to know her so well.

“I can't help it. Of course, if you had told me even just two years ago that I was going to end up in command, I would've lost my mind, probably even cried. Too much responsibility for something I felt so uncomfortable with. I never wanted to do this sort of thing, but now it seems…”

“Natural?”

“Yes! I've never felt that before. All throughout school growing up, I knew I had to do something with my life, so I ended up as a counsellor. Everyone I met in my studies seemed destined for it. I always felt just thrown in. I never knew what anyone else was talking about, how they felt it was a calling. I thought they were just paying it lip service, then when I came to realize they enjoyed it, I felt so adrift. So out of the loop. I never knew what I wanted to do, just that I had to do something.”

“Really?” Julian said. “I would've been with them. I can't imagine doing anything other than medicine.”

Ezri shook her head slightly.

“And I could never imagine doing something I wanted to do. Work was more an obligation than a desire. I chose the first thing I'd ever shown any talent at, something that seemed achievable, that I thought anyone could do.”

“Not just anyone can do it,” Julian reminded her.

“See, I know that now,” she gushed, “I can feel that now!”

”Sounds like you're trying out your newly acquired confidence.”

“And I'm sure it would've come to me eventually, so I almost feel like Dax is helping me cheat. But it's pretty fantastic, regardless.”

Julian smiled warmly.

“It looks good on you, too.”

“I should say thanks,” she said, a sparkle in her eye, “but all I really want to say is: 'I know!'”


	5. Chapter 5

The air was much drier on Cardassia than Garak had become accustomed to. He remembered how it had seemed so damp on _Terok Nor_ when the Bajorans had taken over that he had felt clammy for months. Now, the cup of rokassa juice burned the cracks in his lips.

He sat it down in the stream of dawn light coming in weakly through the kitchen window, and stared blankly at the table, surrounded by the vastness of the house. He had nothing planned for the day, or the week, or the month. The hours stretched empty before him.

He had sent communications to friends - contacts, really - when he had arrived, but no one had replied. The rebellion that had taken the capital was led, after Damar’s death, by a group that had much more influence on the ground. They were reported to be the leaders of an underground he hadn’t known existed, who had quietly been laying the foundations of an internal revolution long before the Dominion had been expelled, and had just needed the right catalyst to set their cause in motion. They were insurgents who had worked in the the highest echelons of government, the military, the justice system, none of whom had had enough power on their own to take down the regime, but who were ready to step in to replace it when it fell. At their head, a young bureaucrat, Taknor Jela who, it was being said, had worked from her position to quietly undo many of the ills perpetuated by the government on its own people. Even though she had the support of key legates, and therefore the loyalty of the army, she knew her position was a precarious one, caught between the loyalty of a populace weary of a centuries-old dictatorship and wounded by its most recent devastating alliance, and the shock of those so recently in power who were desperate to cling to it. She had issued a truce to anyone implicated in the acts of the previous regime so that she could keep enough people with relevant connections and expertise, and thereby retain the government’s function without collapsing the entire system. But, although Taknor came about her position honestly, it was not with naivete: it was plain to those who needed to hear it that the offer was not exemption from heinous past deeds. It was enough to satisfy the citizenry, while at the same time making certain that the worst offenders - she didn’t need to mention their ranks by name - would either lay low or fall into line.

Garak had been waiting for that declaration, which had come early one morning. Upon hearing it, he flew into a rage, smashing his cup onto the kitchen floor as he yelled, picking up a plate and doing the same. Just weeks before he had been instrumental in fighting for his planet’s freedom, from without and within, and now he would be punished for what had happened in the Obsidian Order a quarter of a century before. He smashed another plate and pounded on the counter until his fists ached. When his throat was sore from yelling, he stopped and collapsed on the floor amongst the shards of the dishes asking why, what about the good he had done? In the guilty silence, a voice in his head whispered to him that it was and would always be nothing compared to all the harm he had inflicted - and at that, on his own people. He shook the voice away, and started cleaning up the mess.

And so he was alone and he was useless. He had nothing to do with himself except eat, walk, read and sleep. It was an odd position for him to find himself in, having neither information about anyone, nor anyone he could find who owed him favors. Even to his trained eyes and ears, he could pick up nothing of interest from his time spent around the city. The most subversive activity he could spot was the thriving black market that had sprung up in the crisis. And that he had neither means nor desire to become a part of.

Everyone seemed to know their place, whether it was taking advantage of the situation, trying to carry on as usual, or pitching in. He felt foolish, but he had somehow thought that he would be asked to help - surely the situation was desperate enough! But, quite to the contrary, his presence seemed superfluous. A month earlier he had been helping to plot the downfall of the occupation of the planet; now he might as well have not even existed.

No one at all either wanted or needed him. Cardassia didn't seem to know he was alive, let alone that he had been allowed back. He took to wandering the city, feeling invisible. The one person he had seen in the market one day was another former operative. It had been so long since he had anyone to talk to that he called out instinctively. The man looked at him, startled, then disappeared in the crowd. It only served to heighten his feeling of loneliness, which in turn fueled his resentment of Taknor and everyone else who was helping Cardassia out of its darkness.

But when those thoughts took over, he reminded himself that it wouldn't do to be petulant. Sulking would get him nowhere. There must be something that he could do, some way he could show how indispensable he was. And from there, he could once again be instrumental in shaping the future of his planet. He downed the rest of his breakfast, leaving his cup on the table as he headed to the door.

Walking safely along the streets required practice and attention, and he found that keeping his eyes on the ground was also essential to avoiding shock. Every so often he would stare at a space in the skyline that for some reason seemed familiar, only to realize which landmark had once stood in the emptiness. At first he had thought it was due to the inevitability of a changing cityscape. He had had to steady himself against a wall the day before when he had caught sight of the ruins of the 700 year-old Layizian Library. This morning he kept his eyes down. It was best to try not to see.

As he reached the Hall of Records, still standing though not completely unharmed as the scars across one side of its granite surface would attest, he joined the people who were shuffling up and down the stairs. A queue had formed at the far end of the building, which Garak knew would, despite appearances, move rather quickly; he had stood in it before to be issued a copy of Mila's death certificate, and to formally annul her other documents. Today he passed around those waiting, most of whom he knew were looking for news of missing family members. Many of them would go away at best devastated, at worst unsatisfied. They would end up coming back and suffering again the next day, and for days and days after that. The sunlight was dim and warm on their backs as they muddled forward.

Garak headed for the main doors. Inside the orange-lit entrance hall, the vaulted ceilings echoed the footfalls of those few who were passing through. Security seemed to be at a minimum, so Garak followed the flow of people into the next room. Here things were dimmer, and the walls seemed to glow a faint blue. To his surprise, he found his eyes adjusting quite well. He had forgotten just how bright everything had been aboard _Deep Space Nine_.

He slipped into a short line at the front of which a clerk sat behind a desk with a sign that read simply ‘recruitment.’ The man in front of him had a document officialized before he was sent on his way and the woman called for the next person. Garak strode up to her with a polite smile.

"Can I help you?" she asked after a moment of unexpected silence.

"That, I believe, is what I was going to ask you."

The clerk was unmoved by his congeniality. With less confidence, he hesitantly told her that he was looking to volunteer.

Again there was a silence.

"As...?" she prompted.

Garak's eyes widened. He would finally have a chance to prove himself.

"Covert operations, intelligence gathering..."

As he caught the look in her eyes, he trailed off, adding weakly, “I can provide tailoring services.”

“Excuse me?” she asked pointedly.

“I…”

“Should have familiarized yourself with our requirements before arriving instead of wasting everyone's time.”

This last she said loud enough that the other people waiting could hear, and there was a small commotion behind him. She tossed a pad in his direction, and he scrolled through the list: nurses, doctors, heavy transport operators, pilots, construction experts, civil engineers, water quality specialists, electricians… His heart began to sink, until he finally hit upon something he could do, and tried not to jump with enthusiasm.

"I have communications experience," he ventured more hastily that he felt was dignified.

"Communications?" she asked, perking up and flipping through a series of files on her console. "What, exactly?"

"Signal encoding and decoding, some knowledge of translation, standard comm code training, equipment repair, A-Grade maintenance, general operations -"

"Repair?" she interrupted.

"On a range of different platforms," Garak said, bolstered by her interest.

"There's a job on file at the North Central Hospital,” she said, and held out her hand. He passed his own pad to her, a small personal information device that fit easily in his hand, and held his breath as she started to transfer information.

For a moment, everything seemed to go smoothly, and he let himself breathe again. Then a sound issued from the clerk’s terminal, and she frowned.

“There appears to be some anomaly with your files, Citizen...”

“Aylim,” Garak jumped in a bit too quickly. “Aylim Madan.”

His only hope was that his nervousness in using the assumed identity had gone unnoticed. He mentally ran through the vetting he had done of the documents, baffled at what could have been the problem. He tried to feign surprise at her answer.

“The system seems to think you’re dead.”

His heart skipped a beat at the words, convinced he would be immediately arrested and all for such a stupid and obvious mistake.

“It’s been happening quite frequently. The system is overloaded,” the clerk explained, calmly handing back his pad. “You’ll have to get it sorted out upstairs.”

He pocketed the device as she sent him off in the right direction, but it weighed down on him. The feeling of unease in having used it made the climb difficult, and the memory of how he had obtained it slowed his step.

The day, not a week ago, passing the field of rubble and ash near what had once been the very heart of the city. He had slowed his step then, too, upon seeing the row of bodies laid out, eyes closed, hands by their sides. If their clothing hadn’t been the same grey colour as their coated hair, if blood hadn’t stained it in some places, old and dried, if their faces hadn’t been as white as ghosts, cut and smudged, it could have been some strange performance or protest. But not one of the roughly seventy corpses made even the slightest movement, took not one breath. Pairs of medics and volunteers, far, far fewer than the dead, trudged across the nothingness and dragged themselves and the bodies back. Each journey must have taken hours, he guessed, with barely enough people to even scratch the surface. There were a handful of workers there now, only just perceptible on the horizon, far enough off that they wouldn't be able to see him. He only had a moment’s hesitation before bending down, moving from person to person, skipping over the women, checking the pockets for identification pads, quickly, almost expertly, finding one that wouldn’t turn on, another cracked, and some missing entirely. It took him less than a minute to find two that were in working order, and, checking the information with deft but trembling hands, replaced the one of the man with children and a wife, and assumed the identity of the other - a southerner with very few ties, Aylim Madan.

Reasoning that it would be of more use to him than to the person who had perished under the weight of the city only tempered his guilt, but didn’t rid him of it entirely. He didn’t like to remember guilt especially now that he was closer to it than he had been in twenty years. He had to repeat to himself over and over that it was all in the past. Even if it didn’t always work.

At the top of the stairs he found the office he was directed to and tugged at his tunic to straighten it. He took a breath before he knocked and was summoned to enter.

Another clerk sat at a console that covered the entire desk in front of her. Her eyes flitted away from her main work panel to lists of information scrolling by on one side, communications coming in more slowly next to it, and other panels of information blinking or highlighted. She tapped at each one to suspend them all before looking up at her visitor.

“Elim Garak!”

The name escaped her lips before she could stop herself, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. All colour bled from her features. It was a moment before he could remember where he knew her from, for something about her was just different enough to not recognize immediately. He started as her name returned to him a second later, but he kept it to himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly regaining his composure and clearing his throat, “you must have mistaken me for someone else.”

“My apologies,” she said, not taking her eyes from his face even as he held out his device. She finally tore her gaze away as she took it and laid it on her screens, information popping up around it. Neither of them believed each other’s lie, but they both knew the importance of discretion.

Sunyl Ancia - Glinn Sunyl, a rank they had both once shared in the Order - he recalled without difficulty, for how could he not remember the person who hadn’t even had to vie for his reputation at exactly the time he was losing favour? The woman who, despite how admired and feared he himself had been, made his interrogations seem sloppy, his threats heavy-handed. He couldn’t fathom what would have pushed her to such anonymity, for her change seemed much less than very recent. Now was not the time for questions, though, and perhaps he would never know.

“Citizen Aylim,” she said, shuffling through the information on her screens, “our records have you listed as deceased.”

“It would appear so.”

“And yet, here you are,” she said, staring at him again.

“Here I am.”

She shook her head and looked back down at the documents. His image appeared on all the files - he had been attentive enough to make sure that much was in order. She closed off every one that was unrelated until only two remained.

“It says here that you were working in the Ministry of Transport at the time of the attacks. Missing for two days. Identified by one of the rescue workers who said they found your body and matched you to your profile. Dead.”

“Nearly dead,” he lied. “An easy mistake in such chaos. But I was lucky.”

“You certainly were,” she said, closing one document, then changing the information on the second before making it disappear as well.

She shuffled through a drawer before handing him back his device, picking out something very small and attaching it to the back, making sure to be subtle, but obvious enough that he would notice. He knitted his brow, but took it without a word.

“That should be taken care of,” she concluded. “The work at the hospital you were assigned to downstairs will come through with no problem now, and you will receive messages as usual. You can report back here if you have any further troubles.” But her tone and the fear in her eyes told him that she would much prefer it if he didn’t.

He checked the documents summarily before he left, but trusted that Sunyl - or whatever name she was going by now - had fixed everything so that he would never need to see her again. It was as much for her own protection as for his, and he remembered the thing she had attached to the device. Inspecting it, he found it to be nothing more than a simple receiver - nothing that would be able to track him, or that emitted any sort of information. As it seemed harmless enough, he would wait a day, two at most, to see what it would do before he removed it.

The day before he started his assignment, Garak received a communication. Unlike the others that appeared on his device, it named no recipient, nor did it indicate a sender. There was no way to trace its origin, and he knew immediately it was from Sunyl. Uncertainty made him hesitate before opening it, but curiosity spurred him on.

 _It was a shock to see you,_ it read. _Ten years since anyone had heard anything of you, even then not wishing to ask, knowing only that you weren’t to be envied, that you were likely never to be allowed back. At least, not under Enabrin Tain. If only I could ask if the rumours of his death were true, but I must force myself not to care. Even if it were false, it wouldn’t matter now. Enabrin Dozurac was an unstable and ineffective replacement, and the Order was in shambles even before the Dominion destroyed it completely. Few operatives survived that, but most of us had moved on already. We had to. We could barely keep track of our own people, let alone the cells, but I don’t need to remind you of them. Under Tain, we had them contained, even if we couldn’t track them all. At the very least, we had enough control that we could keep them from doing us much harm. Dozurac was paranoid about control, but his move to concentrate power for the supposed security of the Order made us more vulnerable. We were infiltrated at the highest levels, and information started to bleed out, then to hemorrhage. We never found the leak, but slowly the cells found us, and then they started to beat us at our own game. Many of us saved ourselves, went into hiding - how many were successful, I still don’t know. Even trying to find out is a risk. The Dominion may have destroyed as many cells as it did operatives, but they still have the advantage - they are many, and if one of them falls, there are more to take up the cause. Their duty is to avenge. Their quest is personal. Chaos is on their side. This was not a propitious time for your return, my friend. I tell you this to spare you. There is no other way for us now. What we wrought upon them, their families will wreak on us, until there is no one left for them to find. You win either in disappearance, or in death. That’s the only choice you have left._

He deleted it as soon as he finished reading. A chill ran over him, but he shook it off. The letter seemed unreal and out of place, the information unbelievable. It wasn’t naivete, it was fact: there was nothing he had ascertained that leant any veracity to the story. This was a different planet than he had left all those years ago, a different place, in shambles, with no place for this anymore. There was no use for the self-centred elitism of a secret organization that dealt only in fear, or in the retribution inflicted upon them by the family members of their victims. Cardassia had already borne enough death and destruction, and it couldn’t bear any more. The letter had read like the suspicions of someone gone mad, and was surely just the paranoia of a bygone era. The past was the past, and now was the time to rebuild.

He detached the fragile receiver and, for good measure, crushed it under the heel of his shoe.


	6. Chapter 6

Ezri’s quarters looked like a souvenir shop. Instead of books, her shelves were crowded with every gift she had ever received and every keepsake she had ever bought. She sat on the floor surrounded by them, an army of figurines in an ocean of bowls, dolls, animals, bells, crystals, music boxes, unidentifiable things, every one of which she remembered where or who it was from and what it was for. They were made of wood, pottery, plastics, metal, fabric, some beautiful, some tacky, all equally loved. Julian sat on the couch passing her items to pack in a large transport crate.

“What’s this?” he asked for the hundredth time, holding up a metal sphere with markings around the edge.

“It’s a Halanan chime ball from a colleague I once had who was from there,” she said, laying it in the palm of her hand and giving it a shake. It tinkled sweetly, and after the sound faded she packed it into the crate.

“And this?” 

At the sight of the thin crystal champagne glass, with delicate coloured etchings of four branches with leaves from different seasons climbing the sides, Ezri blushed bright red across her nose and into the spots on her forehead. She avoided Julian’s eye as she placed it in the crate, trying to suppress a smile.

“From a short - but memorable - trip with some friends to Beth Delta I…”

Her patience for her knick knacks was endless, and the stories told like a jumbled but fascinating diary. She kept packing with her own incomprehensible logic, as Julian brought more things down from the shelves.

“Jade,” she said, still looking at what she was packing, but with a sixth sense about her things. “I bought it on the promenade from that shop on the corner that sells everything. It’s supposed to keep you cool on a hot Lissepian summer day.”

Julian looped the string of beads around his hand passing a few over his finger with the nail of his thumb. It made him smile for a moment. Then he had a moment of panic as he looked at the rest of the baubles.

“How are you going to finish all of this in the next two days?”

“It’ll get done,” she said, not looking up. Julian shrugged.

“Are you excited to be leaving?” he asked.

“Not to leave,” she said, dumping an armful of cloth dolls into the nearly-full crate and looking wistfully around the room, “but to be there.”

Julian tilted his head to one side, looking through the lacquered box he had picked up as if it wasn’t there.

“I guess that's not how I approach things. I’d just never realized that my voyages were usually to leave somewhere, not so much to get to another. I’ve always despised wherever I’ve left.”

“Including here?”

Julian looked up at her. “I’m not so sure. It’s the first time I’ve felt tied to a place. It’s probably one of the few places I ever chose to come to on my own. It was my decision.”

At the tone in his voice she stopped what she was doing at looked at him sadly.

“Oh Julian, I can’t stand to see you like this…”

He laughed. “I can barely stand myself!”

She searched his face before venturing a question softly.

“Have you tried to contact him?”

He didn’t look at her, but nodded slightly. There was a twinge at the corner of his mouth.

“Not an easy task, I’m sure.”

“It was almost as if I got nowhere before I even started,” he said.

“I'm sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said with feigned joviality. “You'll be leaving soon, then me. It'll all be behind us!”

“I'll keep in touch,” she promised cheerfully.

Julian shook his head. “You won't.”

She sighed. “But I'll have wanted to.”

“I know.”

***

Julian was grateful that she'd said goodbye to everyone else first and had let him walk her to her shuttle. At the boarding corridor entrance, he stopped and passed her a small box.

“What’s this?” she asked, opening it to reveal a length of round blue beads each with a silver crescent moon and a star inlaid on their surface.

“It’s called a _tesbih_ , they’re prayer beads. They used to belong to my grandmother. I thought they’d make a nice addition to your collection.”

“Oh no, I can’t take these!” she exclaimed, eyes wide, pressing them back towards him. He smiled, catching her hands and cupping them around the beads.

“Please,” he said, “I’d like knowing they were travelling the universe. I think my grandmother would have, too. Besides, she left me a box full of them! She was a bit of a collector herself.”

“Thank you,” she said as she flung her arms around him for a final hug. “Wish me luck!”

“I don't even have to,” he said sincerely.

“I know,” she confided conspiratorially before giving him a kiss on the cheek and all but skipping down the corridor. She waved back at him excitedly, and then she was gone.

He watched from a window on the promenade as her transport took off, and then for a long time after it disappeared into the stars. He was excited for her, but now felt more alone than ever.


	7. Chapter 7

Standing as it did on the outskirts of the city, the North Central Hospital, one of only three left in the city, had survived the worst of the destruction. Garak made his way there each morning by train with a handful of doctors on different shifts, given away by their tall boots and high skirts that meant to protect them from anything that might bleed onto the floor, and nurses in their plainer, grey uniforms. The train felt empty, and there were more than enough seats for everyone, even at the busiest times. When he was able to sit on the east side, Garak watched the houses and buildings interspersed with trees that ended at the distant hills and plateaus. He tried to memorize each one, as if its place was of vital importance. When he sat on the west side of the train, he pulled out a book that he brought with him, so he could keep himself from looking at the crater of ash that stretched to the horizon. It was only so long he could fool himself that his eyes weren’t just skimming the words, and he gave in and stared out the window.

The rest of his team at the hospital was not only small, but all five of them were far more qualified than he was. Even so, they all sat together during lunch at the cafeteria table, not quite fitting in with the other personnel - doctors who knew each other professionally, nurses who spent their working days together, patients who would sometimes eat alone, sometimes with visitors or other patients they had come to know. They would occasionally interact with the custodial and administrative staff during their day, but only on a technical level. In the end their project was only temporary, and Garak was almost surprised that they even managed to be friendly among themselves.

The only space the team had to call their own was a small office near the semi-collapsed south wing, equipped with a console desk, a table with a pair of chairs, and a closet. There was only just enough room to leave their coats for the day and stack some crates of equipment - any overflow they had to store in the corridor. So it was that their team lead gathered them to eat together at the same table every day. Zherna Ralal was not young, nor was she tall, but her short, grey hair and strict dress told anyone who didn’t know her that she knew what she was doing, and they needn’t stand in her way. Despite her appearance to others, she was devoted to her team, and preferred that everyone addressed her and each other by their given names. Still, it felt like she was the parent of the group, even though Garak knew she wasn’t much older than himself, or than Damar Kyth, their resident computer expert. Regardless, it didn’t stop her from treating them just like the three younger members of the team.

Kyth was quiet, but opinionated. He didn’t say much, but whatever he voiced his opinion on, no matter how complex, it was immediately obvious which side he was on. It annoyed Garak, who found him to be arrogant, a perception which was heightened by a northern accent which lent him an air of smugness. But his green eyes, nearly luminescent, and the noble lines of his face made it so that Garak had trouble not listening to everything he said as if it were profound poetry.

The two other women on their team couldn’t have been more different from one another, except for their both being absolutely expert on all the ins and outs of electrical engineering. Surmat Miela was young, just recently out of university, not shy, but reserved, preferring to listen instead of comment on whatever they were discussing. When she worked, she was confident in everything she did, and often terse with the others when they weren’t. No one held it against her, however, because Miela was often, after, Ralal, the most capable of understanding the organization the entire project, and where each part fit in.

Her older counterpart, Elim Ejide (Garak had to stop himself from reacting whenever she was referred to her by her surname), was much more hesitant in her expertise, which Ralal tried to coax her out of with much encouragement, but which often left Kyth in a state of apoplexy. Ejide was talkative, almost overly so, and would detail everything she was doing as she did it, because, Garak soon realized, she was afraid she might be making mistakes and hoped someone would let her know before she did. Garak, with his limited expertise, found it exceptionally helpful.

Of all of them, Garak found Ner Carim the most unremarkable. He was young and eager, and seemed to do well enough in his position as liaison with the comms teams at the other hospitals. But he was often distracted and had to be reminded to stay focussed on the team member he was assisting, instead of watching the pretty doctors attending to their patients. Neither age nor disparity of situation kept him from considering himself their potential partner, and despite his awkwardness, he made several nearly-successful passes within the first week of their being there.

After forming his judgements, Garak accidentally discovered how the rest of the team saw him. When he didn’t respond to his assumed name after being called a few times, it occurred to him that he was thought of as a daydreamer. His tendency to not refer to anything outside of work also got him pegged as something of a recluse. Ralal seemed to assume it was her personal duty to help him with it, and tried to include him in all conversations, especially when he had fallen silent. He still didn’t speak about his personal life, primarily because he felt he no longer had one, or that whatever he had ever had of one had been left floating far away.

On the job, Garak spent quite a lot of his time relearning the specifics of the communications experience he had cobbled together over time, and found that each of his team reacted to him quite differently.

For the first week he, Kyth and Miela had spent mapping the ends of cut-off connections in the mostly-unused south wing of the hospital, which was missing most of its outer walls. In order to not appear as ignorant as he was, Garak took instruction, hesitantly asked questions, and suffered the silent looks that passed between Miela and Kyth. He found it unsurprising that he ended up being the one who simply marked the blueprints.

The following two weeks he spent a much more educational time with Ejide and Carim, in exchange for Ralal, an arrangement that seemed to make everyone much happier. Garak even found himself enjoying it more. Ejide’s knack for teaching flourished around him, and he found she was also much more confident around Carim, with whom she exchanged expertise instead of merely feeling like nuisance. Garak also found he could strike up a conversation with either of them about things unrelated to frequency response and nonlinear circuits, and that Carim was a fan of both ancient poetry and modern music, while Ejide could talk and teach about almost anything, from her secret passion for archaeology and geography, to cooking, theatre, and even sport. Together they certainly weren’t the most efficient trio, but they were easily the most interesting.

A month into their work they finally had the problems laid out that needed fixing, and though the accomplishment seemed paltry in view of the overall project, Ralal insisted that it was still a reason for a celebration. Alone at their table in the corner of the cafeteria, though they were still eating the dull food served to them on trays, they brought what they could to make it slightly more festive. Ejide arranged a small bouquet of flowers in the centre of the table, and Carim had made _abmutiv_ , sticky, sweet and topped with a few colourful ripe berries he had picked from his family garden. Kyth contributed a good bottle of _kanar_ that he had been saving for a similar occasion. They drank from an extra set of cafeteria glasses that the servers had given up somewhat reluctantly. Ralal started them with their first toast.

“I’ve always said that if we don’t celebrate the here and now, there is no point in celebrating at all. So, from what we have come from, to here, especially in a time when celebrations are rare,” she said, holding her glass aloft, “let us toast - that we may be of service to those who are to come, where we could not be to those who have passed.”

They bowed their heads, then drank.

It was almost a pity to return to their food, so they left it aside, picked at Carim’s dessert and continued to drink.

“Madan,” Ralal prompted, and it took Garak a moment to respond, “why don’t you give the next toast?"

The words came to him immediately, and they escaped his mouth almost without thought:

_They shall have stars at elbow and foot;_  
_Though they go mad they shall be sane,_  
_Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;_  
_And death shall have no dominion._

“Beautiful,” Carim commented.

“Yours?” asked Ralal.

“No, just something I heard from… a friend…”

Miela noted that they were supposed to be celebrating, and Ejide prompted Carim to give them something a bit more uplifting.

_We sing the glory of the past filled with ancient lore,_  
_Of former generations that have much burden bore,_  
_And proclaim, heedless of our own mortal fears:_  
_Live on, live on, Cardassia, for ten thousand years!_

They had all joined in the familiar refrain by the end, and their afternoon passed in high spirits that left them giddy. That evening, Garak decided to walk home instead of take the train. The air, he reasoned, would do him good. It did him much more good than he would have thought. He passed old buildings with well-tended gardens, wandered down boulevards centred and lined with trees that were just starting to flower.

It took him more than an hour to near home, and when he did, he couldn't stand the thought of being inside. He knew that there were still a few places to eat, and went in search of one. There was a cafe tucked into a corner across the street from a building that was little more than a shell - half of the facade, in steps to a crumbled top, remained, a front of windowless frames that opened onto the remnants of a structure piled with rubble. The glass and brick and metal that must have covered the street would had been long cleared away. Garak imagined what it might have been like to stand at the same table he was at now when the blast hit. Would he have raised his arm and turned away to protect himself? Would there have been time? Would he have been awed and stupefied instead by the massive light from the sky? Would he even have survived? He shuddered as he turned back to the food in front of him to ward off the thoughts.

He revelled in the simple nostalgia of eating standing up, being outdoors, the novelty of reliving everything he hadn’t done for years, though he remembered more precisely that it had been decades. There was little more to be said about the food than he hadn’t had to prepare it himself. The bread was hard and the soup was bland. The few customers who still afforded themselves the luxury such as he had left scraps behind, which a man in shabby clothing was scavenging off the row of tables that lead halfway down the street. Garak shifted his weight, and tried not to look at him, in an effort to spare him what little dignity he had left.

Just then he was startled by a tap at his elbow. The woman who had plucked at his clothing wore a look of embarrassment and almost didn’t meet his eyes. Her hair was neat, but hadn’t been styled for longer than she probably would have liked. There were stains on her clothing that she had tried her best to remove or cover. Her daughter was dressed well, her clothing bright, her hair braided neatly through with a strand of silver ribbon. By turns she danced under her mother’s hand, or stroked her skirt and sang, or saw a pebble on the ground that she stacked upon another one and another, seeing how high she could build her tower.

“I have a book for sale,” the woman said, struggling to get the words out as she set it on the table in front of Garak. “If you’re interested.”

He was curious, and picked it up, flipping through the pages. It wasn’t a new book, but neither very old, a slim volume of poetry from a century before, the poet whose name Garak recognized, but whose poetry he struggled to bring to mind. Though it was common enough on most bookshelves, this edition stood out in its attention to detail of the golden embossing on the cover and the gilded edges, and the crisp, clean print on its pure white pages. Garak turned to a poem at random, tracing his finger down the columns and over the beautiful intersections of words that meandered with the movement of the theme. Suddenly, he could recall a handful of the author’s poems, and her words and rhythms filled his mind.

Though he knew the poem he had stumbled upon by heart, he found himself reading the words aloud: “My mind alights upon a branch at my window...”

“... and, full of joy, escapes with the birds above the city to touch the sky.”

She met his eyes for the first time, and he looked at her, and back at the poem, noticing she had made a small notation in margin, decipherable only to herself. Flipping through the book, he saw it was replete with small notes, like an exchange of letters with the author herself.

“How much did you want for it?” he asked.

“Only a _fawac_ \- not not much more than a meal,” she said, making a small gesture towards the table, and then quickly brushing at her skirt, embarrassed at her own desperation.

“It’s worth twice that, easily,” he said, and pressed three thin strips into her palm. She stared back at him.

“But I believe I may already have it in my library,” he mused, picking up the book and crouching down in front of the woman's daughter, opening it towards her, “have you had a chance to read it yet?”

She gave him a coy smile, her hands behind her back, and shook her head.

“Mummy reads it to me, though, and sometimes shows me the words. Like this,” she said, and awkwardly read out the word she pointed to. He put the book into her hands and stood up. Her mother was crestfallen, and the dark circles under her eyes darkened as she held the strips in her hand back towards Garak.

Instead of taking it, he closed her fingers over them. She panicked.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice small, “I so ashamed.”

“You must,” he said gently. “Please, dear woman, now is not the time for shame.”

She nodded, and placing her hand to her head in profuse thanks, turned quickly to wipe away the tears that had just risen to her eyes. Her daughter clasped the book to her side as she took her mother’s hand and followed her down the street.

The words and images he had just read again for the first time in ages swirled through his mind like the lines criss-crossed the page. Poetry had been one of the things he had never shared with Julian, as the translations never came out to his liking. As well as it being too old - when he thought about it, he hadn't shared much from before the most recent regime, for fear that, when he was finally allowed back, it could serve to be used against him. Staring through the ruined building to the crumbled parts of the city on the other side of it, he wished he had known that it wouldn't have mattered one bit.

Coming out of his reverie, he noticed the same grubby man still working his way through the tables, and thought he recognized him. At first he thought it laughable - there would be no reason he would know such a person - but reality struck him, and he tried searching for a more familiar context from which he knew him.

It hit him like a cold wave, and he recoiled. Twenty years it had been since he had seen him, but it took only a moment for his name, Tor Inatz, to surface again. The next moment, as he approached Garak's table, his face couldn't hide that he had had the same revelation.

"Elim?" he said, hand outstretched, as if he were speaking to an apparition.

“Tor,” Garak said with a look that couldn’t disguise his disgust. The man laughed at him loudly, then almost immediately pulled the collar of his thin coat about his ears, looking around suspiciously. “What happened to you?”

“Me? What about you? What about any of us?”

As he spoke, his eyes hardly stayed in one place, instead surveying everything around him. Garak took in the hole in his boot, the frayed cuffs of his trousers and his coat, the stains on all of his clothing, the length of his matted hair. He tried his best to ignore the stench that came off of him. When he spoke, it seemed it was more to himself than to anyone around him.

“You’re bold, Elim, being out and about like this. Just anywhere. In the streets. But I remember you were always one to laugh in the face of danger.”

Tor shook his head, then it seemed he couldn’t stop, and just trembled.

“I don’t know how you can live so exposed. Just in the open like this!”

“Do you have a place to go?” Garak asked, confused by his rambling but concerned for him in his condition. Tor looked at him with pity.

“The only place, the Order processing cells,” he laughed quietly. “The building is gone, but the underground is all we need. And I know them like the back of my hand. You know where they are. If you ever need… But, no, don’t tell!” He pulled at his hair and looked around. “I shouldn’t have said anything. But you have to stay safe! You’re soon… I’ve seen the list.”

“The list?”

Head still trembling slightly, Tor looked Garak right in the eye.

“You haven’t seen it? Then you’re lucky. They’ll send you the list. It won’t just be your name on it. You’ll see how it’s happened to the rest.”

“What’s happened?”

“When it comes, you’ll know. You’ll know and you’ll wish you never had.” Without asking, he took the last pieces of bread from the basket on Garak’s table. “I never saw you, and you never saw me.”

Pushing the scraps into his pocket, he wandered off through the rubble. Garak watched him disappear, and had trouble shaking the sense of unease. Although the sun had set, he didn’t feel like going home, and decided to spend the rest of the night wandering the streets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dylan Thomas “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-death-shall-have-no-dominion/ accessed December 26, 2015.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: When you get to **non-English text** , you can [hover over it](this%20is%20a%20false%20link%20so%20don't%20click%20it) to get a translation. (Don't click, they're not really links and don't take you anywhere...)

Work became Julian’s distraction, even if it was routine and uninteresting. In the down times, he occupied himself with reading any and all papers he could get his hands on, contacting the authors about the flaws in their work, and how to set about rectifying them. He rarely heard back.

Turnover in the medical department was as high as other parts of the station, as people took the chance to leave painful memories behind, and others came to replace them with a sense of adventure, or charity, or just for their own new start. Julian didn’t pay much attention to his new staff, except to note that they were competent and got along well amongst themselves. They, on the other hand, seemed almost determined to include him. Alexandrina Guambe, who cheerfully insisted on being called Al, appeared to be their ringleader, and persisted in inviting him to eat or drink with them, even if he relented only on occasion and usually excused himself early. For the most part, he arranged shifts so that they could spend as much time as possible getting to know each other, and as little time as possible with him. Since he was leaving in a few months anyway, there was little point in getting to know people he would just end up leaving behind.

And so he ended up eating his lunches alone. It was a change, like clearing a slate to start new. It gave him a chance to observe everyone else on the promenade, something he had never had the time to do before. There were, as usual, a handful of personnel, but they didn’t make up even a quarter of the people. Most were people passing through, on their way to or from elsewhere: Bajoran vedeks in their deep orange robes, the rare Cardassian in heavy grey dress, the even rarer human visiting from far-away Earth, looking for stories and bragging rights to bring back home. Everyone gathered to eat under the high central ceiling with its bright light, which felt as close to sunlight as anything could in the middle of a space station. They shared food and time and laughter with the people they knew and loved. His attention fell back to his plate, and he twirled his glass idly with his finger in a circle across his tray. His own preoccupations had kept him from ever noticing just how transitory a place this was.

He stopped walking the promenade mezzanine for the same reason. All he saw everywhere were people either in the middle of living their lives or moving from place to place while he was stuck in limbo. The problem was he knew that his time on the station would end, but it wasn’t ending fast enough. He tried to stop himself from doing a mental calculation every time he looked at a clock, because he ended up with a precise countdown of the days, minutes and seconds until he left, which made the remaining time pass even more slowly. Slow enough to act like torture, but never slow enough to be able to wait for the only reason he was still there.

When he had nowhere else to go, he hid in his quarters. He spent the better part of an evening picking books off his shelf, reading the first page and reshelving it in boredom. Exhausted, he finally threw himself down on the couch and moaned in frustration. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the plain blue box that had been sitting under a pile of PADDs and a few mugs. As he cleaned them off, he remembered it had been sitting there since he had taken it out when Ezri left.

He set the lid aside, and pulled out the strings of beads, admiring them one by one. There was a short one of dark shiny spheres with a silver clasp and a black corded tassel on the end that he thought looked rather somber and hadn’t remembered seeing before. Another was of light green jade, another a red stone, one of yellow, two strands that were just slightly different pinks, until he had piled in front of him a rainbow of gemstones and different coloured wood.

There was a long strand, his grandmother’s favourite, made of exactly ninety-nine highly polished seeds. The first time he saw her with them he must have been only four or five and was visiting her during another hot Algerian summer. He had just come in from playing with the neighbour’s children to find her sitting at a shaded window with her eyes closed, every so often pulling a bead over her finger with her thumb and whispering a few words out loud. Her recitation was hypnotic, and he sat on the floor and watched her until she was finished. When she opened her eyes, she jumped, then laughed, not having noticed him there. She handed him the beads and started to tell him the names of Allah, and the stories that went with them. When he saw his mother again at the end of the summer, he was so proud of all he had memorized that he barely stopped for a breath as he tried to say as many as he could as quickly as possible.

He passed a few beads through his own thumb and finger now, reciting like his grandmother had taught him.

" _[Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, Al-Malik, Al-Quddus, As-Salam](The%20Most%20Compassionate,%20The%20All-Merciful,%20The%20Absolute%20Ruler,%20The%20Most%20Holy,%20The%20Bestower%20of%20peace...%20\(Ara.\))..._ "

It came much less easily than when he was a child, and he found himself stopping often to try to remember the next in the sequence. He stopped himself, because it was just a list now - he had forgotten the stories.

 _"[Pardonne-moi, grand mère](Forgive%20me,%20grandmother%20\(Fr.\)),"_ he muttered aloud, automatically.

It took him a few a few more visits to memorize all the names completely. When he didn’t see his grandmother over the summer he was seven, he was afraid he was going to have forgotten it all. But when he returned the next summer, he impressed her not only with all he had learned, but by memorizing the Qur’an, sometimes a handful of verses in a day.

Again he told his mother, who tried to force a smile and told him it was wonderful. But she had grown up not caring much for her mother’s religion, and Julian had stopped showing off when he could feel the tension it called up between them. Instead, he revelled in having something special to share with just his grandmother. She would ask him to recite something, and they’d discuss it as they made their way back home from shopping, or on walks to the beach.

As he grew older, she taught him French as well, a skill which his linguist mother could commend him for with much more enthusiasm. When he asked his grandmother why she knew French and Arabic if they had had to fight to make the French leave so they could try to live again as they wanted, she had reminded him of _al-Ghaffar_ \- the All Forgiving. Allah went hand in hand with time: that in order to continue living, one had to forgive and forget.

Try as he might, it was what he found the most difficult. As he grew older, he became more uncomfortable reading the words and meditating on their meaning. He was embarrassed of who he was, of his flaws that he had to keep secret, that he was so different from everybody else, even if he didn’t quite understand why, that he had to be changed to be better. Whenever he was reminded of that, he didn’t think that anyone, even Allah, would be able to forgive him for it. After his grandmother passed away when he was eleven, he actively tried to forget everything he had learned.

Glancing back in the box, he pulled out the green tome with its gilded pattern and elaborate circle of calligraphy that sat at the bottom. It was heavy and familiar in his hand. He reddened at the thought that he had kept it hidden away so long, and yet had still kept it. Carefully, he put each strand of beads back in the box, all except the seeds and the Qur’an. He stared at them for a moment, the tasbih swirled gently on the cover, and then placed the lid back on the box. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do with them, but he left them there on the table, and put the box back where it had come from.

Something then propelled him to pick up a PADD and start a letter. For a long time he sat with a blank page in front of him, wanting and not wanting to write, not knowing what to say. Finally, he decided to write a letter to Ezri instead.

The words flowed like he was saying them out loud, like he couldn’t stop, dumping five months of pent up worry and self-pity and confusion onto the page. When he finally stopped, he was out of breath and light headed. Glancing over the words, unable to read them, embarrassed at himself, he deleted it before he sent it. She would, after all, be busy anyway, and not have had time to read it.


	9. Chapter 9

Just as they were getting to understand the entire hospital with all its nooks and crannies, every set of wiring, every wireless dead spot, every room that had been sealed up from disuse, or had disappeared off the blueprints when a wall had been knocked through, just when they were getting to know all the peculiarities of connecting every piece of communications equipment to every other, and how it relayed to other communications systems in the city and on the planet, their project came to an end.

Despite the shortcomings of their team, of which Garak considered himself the source, they finished not only ahead of schedule, but before the crews at the other hospitals. Thrilled to be fully functional again, the administration of the North Central, along with representatives from the other two hospitals and the city administration threw a party in their honour. It was held at the hospital itself in the evening, in the cafeteria which doubled as an ampitheatre, and all were invited to participate: doctors, nurses, staff and even patients who were well enough. Tables were pushed to the side and chairs lined up in the middle for speeches that would take hours, and would be more or less intriguing depending on the eloquence of those who had been asked to speak. The mere thought of it had Garak excited for days.

With the clear space in the centre, the cafeteria was transformed and Garak saw more clearly what he had seen each day, but not truly noticed. The columns around the edges were finely ridged, like sand dunes, and the same colour. Their dozen held up a vaulted ceiling that mimicked the intense clear blue of a midday sky. Only the flaking chunks of paint from the three-hundred year old architecture that hadn’t been kept up for the past century and a half disturbed the illusion. Frescoes of the most significant figures from the history of medicine and healing decorated the bottom edges all around, each depicted in a small scene from their place of origin, all illuminated with concealed lights that seemed to make the wall glow from within itself. The entire piece seemed out of place to Garak until he recalled with sadness that he had merely forgotten so much of what he had once taken for granted. He had seen much of the galaxy, but nowhere quite as beautiful as home.

Everyone dressed up for the occasion in a joyful cascade of colours, although it was obvious that very few of their outfits were new. It was understandable, given current rationing restrictions, and Garak noticed a few people had to alter their clothing to make it fit properly. All the same, even the serving staff, who were working the evening, were in fancier-than-usual dress beneath their aprons. No more than two hundred people were present, but each detail spoke to the quality of the event, not the number in attendance.

Proceedings began with the hospital’s president giving a speech, starting late as usual, just as the last few stragglers settled in. She spoke of the history of the hospital itself, working from the present back through time, from its current ordeal to its founders, and finally touched on the story of each figure who adorned the ceiling. Garak was entranced, though part way through he turned at a sigh and caught the crossed arms and weary look of one of the older doctors. He almost laughed out loud, wondering how many times she had heard the same speech in different circumstances. Her boredom changed to approval, however, as the speech concluded with the first step in history: the god, Myrthas, the healer, who had appeared to the ancient Cardassians in times of great injury. The president spoke of him neither derogatorily nor reverentially, simply mentioning him as a part of the story. Garak was too dumbstruck by her words to notice the great sense of peace they cast over the room. Even just months ago, they would have inspired the harsh censure of the regime.

Not all of the speakers were as easy to listen to, especially the representative of the city who talked about the recent sorrows they had all endured, and which was the reason they were gathered in the first place. He spoke only briefly of it, changing tact as it seemed to upset him as much as it did many others in the audience. There were the sounds of barely restrained emotion from around the room, and one person near the back let out a single sob before rushing out the doors. At the end of his row, Carim covered his face with his hands in the first show of deep emotion that Garak had ever seen from him, and it was Kyth, sitting next to him, who put an arm around his shoulder in an even rarer gesture of compassion. For the first time Garak, having lived among those who had survived the tragedy, felt some of the same grief, if not as deeply, at least as keenly. The whole gathering observed a period of silence, eyes closed, faces upturned to the sky in a gesture that Garak almost couldn’t make and that made him feel foreign again. It was with difficulty that he let go the instinct to abhor and reprimand such behaviour. The ease with which those around him participated in the old ritual made Garak wonder how long such things had been going on, despite their prohibition, unobserved or unreported. He was relearning a sense of his planet he had ever only vaguely known.

The final speaker was a poet, a surprise celebrity, who had been visiting family in the hospital, but who was called forward by the president who knew she was in the audience. She enchanted everyone, naturally the best speaker of the evening. The elegance of her stirring prose and verse brought them back to hope, and to laughter, and she concluded with the most coveted of duties - to start the toasting. Servers passed trays down the rows and everyone took a generous glass of amber _muhgros_ that would, by the end of her toasts, be empty, have people in an excellent mood, and allow them to eat and enjoy themselves as they should. She started with a thanks to each member of the team, composed impromptu in the form of a few rhyming couplets. Garak felt awkward standing at his turn, the paranoia of being recognized having mostly but not entirely disappeared in the last five uneventful months, but it passed quickly enough, and the poet moved on.

In that moment, Garak had a strange flash of something familiar, whether triggered by a word or a gesture he couldn't tell. It produced a sense of horror such as he hadn't experienced in a long time. But then, he hadn’t consciously remembered the nightmares that had been haunting him for months. They were clear in the few moments after he awoke, panting and panicked, and realised his hands weren’t, in reality, around a man’s throat; they grew dimmer as he stood under the shower and saw that his hands weren’t really covered in blood; they were so faded by the time he ate that he didn’t know why he still recalled the image of a woman lying on the ground in a darkened room giving no sign of life; and by the time he walked out the door he didn't remember that he had dreamed at all. And so it was now, the feeling quickly passed, disappearing just like all the other images disappeared, as life continued.

Ralal was the final one to be recognized, with the longest verse, and even though hardly anyone in the room except for the small group of them knew her, everyone cheered. By this time, Ejide was sufficiently inebriated that she embraced her with one arm, glass aloft, and kissed her on the cheek amid the applause. The speeches concluded, everyone moved their own chair to a form a long row against the back wall so that the hall was clear and they could move to the opposite side and partake of the marvellous array of food that was as ornate as could be mustered in such a time of shortage.

Plate upon plate crowded for space on the long line of tables. There was an array of different fish, each one cooked whole to show it off, arranged upright, tails and fins spread wide and mouth agape, with pieces of flesh turned outward, ready to be plucked from the bone. Fruit of all colours was topped with sugar, bread was stacked in flat pieces, and desserts were abundant. Instead of the edible flowers that would usually adorn such a summer banquet, there were vegetables painstakingly cut to imitate them. Little bowls piled with pyramids of nuts, insects or berries filled in nearly every gap. Above everything towered more bottles of _muhgros_ , and in the corner of the room, a small trio of instrumentalists, the players no older than students, had been playing music since the end of the speeches, almost unnoticed under the conversation. 

A crowd had gathered around Ralal as she related the story of their work with the skill that came with age and practice, detailing only the most interesting parts. When she grew tired, she dismissed her small audience politely so she could refresh her drink. Ejide followed her, but Garak avoided their path. Ralal had been playing matchmaker with the team from the outset, with varying degrees of success. He spotted Carim, who was much more cheerful now, focussing his attentions on Miela who, in her subtle way, was reciprocating, even if to an outsider she seemed aloof. Ralal’s attempts to pair Garak with Ejide had been stop-and-go, despite her reminding them often that neither of them were in the prime of youth. Garak had been resistant to Ralal’s meddling to start, but finally gave in, hoping that it would deter her. He and Ejide every so often agreed to eat together, or go for walks. It didn’t stave off Ralal, who continued to pester them both. Garak would answer her questions with a mysterious smile that convinced her she was on the right path; Ejide, for her part, attempted to appease her with an uncomfortable laugh that said little directly, and had the unfortunate effect of keeping Ralal intrigued. The time they spent alone together became less formal and more easy, Ejide talking at length on topics that interested her, and more frequently on what interested her and Garak both. They enjoyed being less lonely, and Ejide even admitted that she supposed he “would make a good enough husband.” She had taken his hand deliberately after she said it, but was still uneasily, and stiffened when he put his arm around her. Garak knew the reasons for his own wariness, but couldn’t divine hers.

Until that very evening, as he watched her across the room, making sure that Ralal was otherwise occupied so that she wouldn’t catch him at it, misinterpret his curiosity for interest, and try to urge them together. What he saw in Ejide was a revelation that surprised him, and which he was astounded not to have recognized earlier. Left on her own, Ejide paused in the middle of putting food on her plate and scanned the crowd. Her face betrayed her frustration when her eyes landed on a woman talking to, and worse, being affectionate towards a rather handsome young man, which Garak at first mistook for longing. But he watched more closely, and saw that she was slightly more intent when finding a pair of women laughing together. Her gaze lingered longest on a woman sitting alone, but she blushed and looked away when the woman returned a quizzical glance. Ejide pretended to be studiously piling more things on her plate, but Garak saw her hands shaking, and saw the tears that she made fall straight down off her eyes so they wouldn’t stain her cheeks. He knew her anger and sadness, and his heart went out to her, knowing how it felt, the complete and utter isolation in the midst of a world full of people.

In that moment he finally understood why he ‘would do’ and allowed himself to wonder if she would, as well. He thought a little sadly that they would make for the perfect pair, starting a life of marital bliss by hating being with each other from the outset, before even having the chance to grow tired of married life. One iteration of his future, the only, it seemed, filled with resignation to the fact that they might as well be unhappy together. Life was not ideal, but at least they were here, they were alive, and they should be grateful for having that much. Nothing would change, and they would have to make do with what was before them.

The drinking and talking continued, and the music changed from being in the background to being at the forefront. As more people finished eating, they took advantage of the empty space to start to dance. Formality was the order at first, with the music measured, the steps refined, known by all just as they had been taught in school growing up. As more people joined, however, the music and the dancers outgrew the pomposity, and the musicians took up folk tunes from different regions. Some dancers became teachers as the tunes they knew filled the air, until there was a boisterous tumult spinning into the night. Garak sat on the sidelines to observe, watching Ejide dance without restraint, moving cheerfully from woman to woman, a partner willing to step in to make up for the dearth of men in the crowd, tipped as the balance was by the profusion of doctors. In the noise and the fray, she was happy, and another future presented itself before Garak’s eyes. One that he had seen each day since his arrival, one that he witnessed in the unabashed reemergence of the past, the embracing of a freedom by a people tired of being restrained by ideals that had seemed noble ages ago, at their outset, but had degraded into something unrecognizable. History had gone wrong, veered from its slow path of progress by those who thought that they could speed it along its way by force, and in the end proved that control and not equality was their true prerogative. The world found only too late they were living under a system they hardly believed in but were helpless to oppose. Now, change was loosening its shackles, not to revolutionize the future, but to once again help sculpt it. It wasn’t something to be waited for, it was already happening, without prompting, without organization, merely because it could. It had been in the words pronounced by Taknor all those months ago, in everything she had said since. It was there in the words of those who had spoken that evening, and in the faces of those who were emerging from suffering with sufferance, determined to move forward, to move beyond.

And Garak knew, too, that their stories, his and Ejide’s and those of countless others, were not new, that they had merely been pushed aside, like so much else, and forced to hide in the shadows. Two centuries was a long time, long enough for memory to be warped, but not enough for it to die, and life, in all its variety, would emerge once again into the light. Cardassia had merely faltered, but it would find its footing again, and carry on.

He tipped his glass back, and then laughed into the empty bottom at his idealism. It must just have been the drink talking.

“I’m surprised to not see you up and dancing, Madan,” Kyth said, taking a seat next to him and interrupting his thoughts.

“Clever of you to avoid Ralal,” he said.

Garak was envious that, of all of them, Kyth had managed to escape Ralal’s machinations. When she had shown interest in his personal affairs, he reminded her of his wife and children. It gave her a chance to wax poetic about family life, and kept her happy and disinterested. His provocation annoyed Garak, like a form of bragging.

“But you’re ignoring your Ejide, too?”

At that, Garak had trouble hiding just how rankled he was by Kyth’s use of the possessive.

“Don't get upset!” he laughed. “I can see more than you think. You've been watching her, but not really watching her. You’ve been watching who she's watching. Not the couples talking, not the men. And she doesn't eye the women with jealousy - she doesn't want to be like them, she wants to be with them.”

Garak turned toward him suddenly, and Kyth was bolstered by his reaction.

“Are you surprised? Disappointed?” He leaned in closer. “Are you relieved?”

Garak didn’t know how to answer, so chose not to.

“Do you think you could make her happy, Madan? Make her satisfied?”

He was discomfited at Kyth’s intrusion on his thoughts.

“Do you think you could make her a deal? A cover for what each of you really want?”

Garak froze at his words.

“It surprises you that I can see that, too? It’s not so hard when you know what to look for. But you know enough to know life doesn't work that way: two people such as yourselves, living under the same roof. You’d be lucky not to kill each other out of frustration.”

“How does it work, then?”

Kyth shrugged, leaning his arm on the back of his chair. “I suppose it’s different for everyone. For me, my wife has her children. Our children. She's happy. Content. I have them, but I also have some degree of freedom. We both have what we want.”

“I don’t know what she wants,” Garak mused.

“Do you know what you want, Madan? What you really want? Who are you going to leave with tonight?”

Garak gave him a strange look. In one simple glance, Kyth took in the room, and squeezed Garak’s thigh, making sure the gesture went unnoticed by anyone else.

“Her, or me? Are you going to do what you feel you should, or what you know you want to?”

Heat rushed through Garak at the words. His eyes followed Kyth as he walked from the room. People continued to dance, the music continued to play, but Garak neither saw nor heard anything. Then he stood and followed him, too.

***

For Garak, it was another unfamiliar bed in what were all too familiar circumstances. Except that this time, he had had months to develop a secret lust for his partner. That the lust was being satisfied at all, where it had for so long seemed a fantasy, loaned it an even greater excitement.

They fell upon each other with an appetite fueled by the lingering mood of the evening and spurred on by alcohol. They groped, grasped, were always in motion, no desire to caress or waste time, choreographing their own restless dance, seeking only climax, which circumstances conspired to make happen with little effort and even less thought. And, too quickly, still breathless, they were both spent.

Overcome by pleasure, exertion and drink, Garak drifted off. He didn’t know how much later it was when he woke up, but he was surprised to see Kyth fully dressed, fastening his collar in a mirror.

“You're leaving?” Garak asked. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” he said simply. “You can stay if you need. The door will lock itself behind you when you go.”

And then, just like that, Garak was alone, the small apartment cavernous around him. Pulling the covers over himself, he let sleep overtake him once more.

It wasn’t much later that he awoke again, this time on instinct, then remembered that he didn’t have to leave. The shaded half-light from the edges of the blinds let him know that it was still before dawn, but his eyes wouldn’t close again. Still tired, but cold in the emptiness, he showered and dressed, and set out into the misty morning.

His mind was only half awake, jumbled with thoughts and deeds from the night before, with the choices that he didn’t want to think about, let alone have to make. He knew he needed more than a hidden life, half lived. He needed more, too, than wild abandon in the dark and abandonment in the light of day. There was another choice that he could make, were he to make a sacrifice, were Ejide to make it on her part, too. It would involve a compromise, but he didn’t know if it was a compromise either of them were willing to make.

It was, however, a choice to make, not to wait until it was made by time or circumstance. And it struck him in that moment that this was it. There was no waiting for this assignment to end in the hopes that the next would be more to his liking, or more reputable, or would make others more proud of him. There was no other place where the people would be more interesting or more endearing - they would be the same people, in their own variations. The days were not leading to anything but more days like these. This was not a moment in time to be waited out for a better life to appear. This was life, tracing its path in the sand with every footstep, carving it out, no ready-made trail to find. The winds would forever erase the past and keep the future clear and unknown.

With that knowledge, he felt his mind lighten. It wasn’t from joy at the choice, but from being endowed with a sense of volition. Whatever his future was like, it was here, where he could now be, wanted to be, had chosen to be. The future, however it may turn out, would be his choice, and that was, if not happiness, if still daunting, at least clarity. It was light and unburdened.

Shoving his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, he headed for home. The mist turned to drizzle, and he turned his collar up against it. Through the streaks, he thought he saw something out of the ordinary, the dull glow of a paper attached to his door, a notice, but with too many pictures, or a poster, but not bright enough. Only as he approached did he recognize what it was. His heart stood still, and the nightmares rushed back clearly. He grabbed the paper with shaking hands, staring at his own name and image at the top of a long list, his crimes and his victims detailed next to it. He felt sick.

“No, no, no!” he pleaded.

He couldn’t breathe as he scanned the other names, some still at large, like himself, their misdeeds detailed next to their stoic images. Others had their official profile replaced with an image from mere moments after their execution, a single, crude word beneath it: _done_. He knew nearly every name, but found two glaring anomalies, jarring to him to see them there, knowing the faces not as operatives but themselves as victims of the Order, files that must not have been deleted, or had been corrupted in the system, and appeared in the wrong place. He pressed the paper to the door, tapped at the names, and wrote in bold letters across their images _innocent_ trying to convey with that simple word the mistake that had gone unnoticed, the extra blood that didn’t need to be shed.

The sun that was supposed to be rising now was covered by grey cloud, and the rain had begun to fall in earnest. Garak could barely stand upright, and the page dropped to the ground as he held himself up against the doorframe. He had been a fool not to have believed it, but there was no more proof needed.

His only choice now was to flee.


	10. Chapter 10

With only two months left until he could leave, Julian lost his first patient. No, he thought, that was too dramatic - they were, after all, completely healthy, except for their chronic complaints about heartburn. He reworded it in his head: he had given away his first patient. Shifted the entirety of their care to Doctor Guambe. He ‘lost’ two more patients that very day. By the end of the first week of it, he had supervised so many patient transfers without getting a word in edgewise that he wondered if he wasn’t much less qualified than the staff that was replacing him.

Boredom followed hard on his feeling of uselessness, and more wandering thoughts followed that. He was resenting his staff, resenting people walking arm in arm that he passed as he walked the promenade, resenting the people who sat together talking earnestly or in earnest silence at tables near him during lunch. By the time he got to talk to Miles at the end of the week, he felt like a petulant child.

“Wave to Uncle Julian, you two,” Miles said, catching Yoshi and Molly on a rambunctious run past the screen. Julian gave them both a weak smile as they flapped their hands at him, then darted past, giggling.

“They’re growing so quickly.”

“Sometimes I can’t keep up with the them. Julian - are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Oh, sure, that’s what ‘fine’ sounds like!”

Julian let out a sigh. “I just feel so trapped.”

“Can you get away for a bit?”

“That’s the thing, I have two weeks of holiday I’ve accumulated that they’re making me take at the end of this. I don’t know how I’ll get through it.”

“Oh, that’s right, talk to the man with two children about having too much time on your hands.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’ll trade places with you - anything for a bit of boredom!” There was scream in the background that Miles turned to reprimand. “Molly, be nice!” Just as quickly, the children were back to laughter again.

“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m going stir crazy.”

“No one you can spend some time with? I know it’s not easy, but there must be someone, even with Ezri gone.”

“No one wants to spend time with their boss.”

“Sounds more like their boss doesn’t want to spend time with them.”

Julian shrugged.

“Well, if not that then why not read, or, I don’t know, spend some time in the holosuites?” Miles suggested.

Julian was about to open his mouth to protest for whatever reason he could find, but the only sound came from one of the children again. This time, however, the scream devolved into tears, and Miles had to say a hasty goodbye, promising to talk more the next time, and making sure Julian kept up his end of the bargain and got himself distracted.

The very next night Julian found himself sitting at a table on the top level of Quark’s bar, twirling a holorod in his fingers that he had chosen from his collection at random. He sighed impatiently at the doors to the suite he’d booked, the occupants of which were already more than a few minutes over their time. Just before he got up to complain, the doors opened, and a Ferengi left, straightening out the front of his clothing and throwing a wide smile at Julian as he passed. Julian tried not to think what program he might have been running, quickly shaking the thought from his head, hoping others wouldn’t be as judgemental about his choice, whatever it turned out to be. After the program loaded, he stepped through the doors.

He found himself on an English country airfield with a line of Spitfires, Hurricanes, and a couple of cast away Fairey Battles going through one last check before take off. He smiled at the coincidence - he’d have to tell Miles - but he couldn’t bring himself to rush to any of the waiting planes. The whirr of the propellers starting drowned out everything else, and he had to turn and walk away. He made his way past the hangars and out the main gates, remembering that the program included enough of the surrounding countryside that downed pilots were forced to trek across, as he’d had to do more times that he wanted to admit. The road was unmarked, so he decided to follow the slope downwards, hoping it might lead to the sea. Under the clear sky the sun was warm, and the program continued to play itself out in the background. Only half-listening as he found a marked footpath that led to a small wood, he let the program continue. That was, until the planes started shooting. At the sound of gunfire, he gritted his teeth, and clenching his jaw painfully as a cannon blast hit its target sending the first Messerschmitt droning as it fell from the sky. With a swift command to the computer, he suspended the program, shutting his eyes tightly until the ringing in his ears faded and his pulse stopped racing. He considered turning the program off entirely, but with the noise of battle gone, the air was soft, and even carried birdsong from across the fields. He kept on down the path, through the wood and ended at a field and a short set of cliffs on the other side.

The beach was muddy and had a peculiar smell at low tide, almost a stench, saltier and more sulphurous than what he was used to. He had never really come to this sort of beach. Growing up on the east coast of England, visiting his grandmother on the south coast of the Mediterranean, or at the Academy near San Francisco Bay, every beach he had been to had soft sand and real waves. The uninspiring view in front of him was hardly recognizable as his own country. It wasn't easy finding a flat rock to skip out across the water, and he could only just get it to splash once at the edge when he did. He climbed back up the short cliff and sat on the grass, listening to the gulls screeching over the water, watching the sky whiten and the gathering clouds turn pink as it approached evening, the sun setting over land behind him. It was an excellent simulation, but the holosuite was no match for actually being in a place - something always gave it away, even if he couldn't quite tell what it was. It made him start to look forward to his holiday, thinking perhaps he’d spend it on one of the planets in the Sumiko system, since he had been told it was well worth the trip, and also happened to be on the way to his new posting. Even so, he hated being in any place alone, and worried he'd feel the same way about Cliffs of Heaven as the crumbling dirt in front of him now. He got up off the soft grass and left the simulation, shaking away the melancholy and feeling invigorated overall, and desperate to be around people. He wasn't sure whether he was going to thank or curse Miles for that as well.

The next day the relaxed feeling stayed with him, and Al even commented that he was more talkative than she’d seen him yet. He had smiled at that, and even happily taken up her offer to join her and the rest of the staff that evening at Quark’s. It was the first time he’d spent time with all six of the new personnel, as there were thankfully no patients in the sickbay that night, though Al and one of the nurses left themselves on call in case of emergency. He was getting used to her directness, and wasn't even taken aback when she mentioned she was pleasantly surprised with Julian’s change of attitude. Without even having to think about it, he made an effort to join in the conversations, rather than sit back in silence, and started to feel like his normal self again.

Two of the nurses Julian hadn’t yet met outside of sickbay. One was Mirin Gale, the new Bajoran head of nursing who had moved into his position so seamlessly that Julian had found himself sending the other nurses to him when he couldn’t provide an answer himself. Gale was young and resourceful, but reserved when they sat down at their table, letting others start the conversation instead. Two of his nurses, chattier than he was, were unjoined Trill twins, Vernas and her brother Leovo, who Julian had been wary of allowing to work together at first, but found that they functioned almost symbiotically. He smiled, wondering what Dax would have said to him. Their final nurse, Kunik, was a Vulcan who was measured, methodical and highly reasoned to a stereotype. But he let his passion come through sometimes, especially for cuisine, which, when even lightly pressed, he would fully admit to the station’s variety of interesting residents and their food being his primary reason for choosing the posting. Julian had had to extricate himself once or twice from a detailed description of an unexceptional lunch he had asked him about in passing, and learned quickly to avoid any casual mentions of food. He found Kunik exceptionally useful, however, when he wanted an interesting recommendation for a meal. The other passion he harboured was for card games, which he and the other new doctor on staff, a Bajoran by the name of Opara Matek, were playing when the rest of the group joined them that evening. Matek enjoyed the chance for sarcasm, though always with a grin, which made his relationship with Kunik all the more interesting, as the Vulcan tried sincerely to understand him. Julian couldn't quite figure out if Matek found it more frustrating or more amusing, but his tendency to be scheduled with him led Julian to believe it was the latter.

They swept the cards away as everyone sat down with their first round of drinks, and all made a quick toast to their first full get together. As fascinating as the rest were, Julian had been thankful for Al, the only other human of the group, or his loneliness might have gone unnoticed, and they certainly wouldn’t have persisted in inviting him along. The only thing he hadn’t counted on that night was being the centre of attention.

“I hear you’re almost unbeatable at a game of darts,” Leovo said by way of introduction, with an added challenge of a game, that left Julian at a loss for words.

“Leave him alone,” Gale chided, “I’m sure Doctor Bashir has better things to do than - ”

“Just Julian, please,” he interrupted.

“Besides, I’m sure he has more interesting stories,” Vernas chimed in, intently, “especially about the war.”

Julian shifted in his seat.

“You were on the _Defiant_ , weren’t you?” Leovo asked, as interested in what he had to say even more than in darts.

It wasn’t something Julian had talked about. No one had asked before, he assumed because they were all there as well, and didn’t want to talk about it just as much as him. But it was also something he hadn’t, until now, realized he didn’t much want to to talk about - he was happy to leave the past in the past. Except that he didn’t have to do much of the talking. Kunik listed some of the Dominion War battles the ship had been in, while Vernas was enthusiastic about the _Defiant’s_ cloaking capabilities. It made Julian feel outside of himself for a moment, almost as if he hadn’t been there for any of it, that it was just a story he had heard.

“It must have been exciting,” Matek said.

“Excitement isn’t really a word I would use to describe it. Terrifying, really.”

“That’s exciting,” Vernas said, just before getting an elbow to the ribs from her brother. Julian could feel his pulse racing as quickly as when he had been in the holosuite the day before.

“It’s traumatic, regardless,” Al interrupted calmly, and Julian took a moment to breathe. The others looked at their drinks.

“We may have been fighting,” Julian said when he had composed himself a bit, “but it never really matters why, in the end. You realize you’re still a doctor. The losses…”

“I didn’t think the Starfleet Alliance suffered that many losses, all told,” Kunik stated matter-of-factly.

Julian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We all take our oaths. Even when the enemy falls…” He swallowed to push down the lump in his throat that formed when he thought of the nearly one billion Cardassians that had died. There was a sense of it being personal, and the word enemy didn’t suit so much anymore as did the word victim.

“I thought the Jem’Hadar were bred solely to fight?”

Shocked, angry, partly at himself for not even having considered them, Julian reacted sharply. “They’re still people!”

Al stepped in again, ever the diplomat, putting a soothing hand on his, addressing the others. “We all lose sight of these things. It’s good to remember, especially given our profession.”

She called for another round, changing the subject. Julian was breathless from their conversation, but by the time he reached his third drink he was tipsy enough to no longer be upset. They weren’t to have known, he reasoned, and silently forgave them. From then on, he was content to sit back and listen and laugh with them as they talked about everything and nothing. He joined them more frequently after that evening, finally took up Leovo on his challenge of a game of darts (and let him lose only by a slight margin), joined in and even taught a few new cards games, and grew more and more comfortable around them. He started to anticipate Kunik’s critique of every new drink he ordered, his personal mission to try everything Quark had on offer. Kunik had even invited everyone for a meal in his quarters one night which he prepared expertly, leaving them all stuffed and amazed. Julian was surprised to learn more about Al than just her research on persistent nanobot repair technology for chronic conditions and her flair for diplomacy, especially her slight predilection for the dabo tables. She made sure to ask him and Matek to keep a close eye on her, especially towards the end of an evening. Julian also found himself occasionally eyeing up the twins, and scolded himself, and tried to focus on what they talked about instead. Time was flying, passing by effortlessly, and he now wished it would slow so he could spend more time with this crew he was just getting to know and would be leaving so soon.

Despite his sociability, he still kept lunches to himself. But being surrounded by everyone else in the massive dining area made the time feel empty. He tried to keep himself from imagining someone sitting across from him, having a lively conversation, an intense conversation, or even none at all. He wondered what he would now say to Garak were he still around, and grew angry with himself for not having been bold enough or brave enough to have done it while he was actually there. It was much easier to direct his anger at the empty chair across from him, and it only became a problem when he started vocalizing his thoughts on occasion, drawing wary glances from nearby patrons.

In an effort to exorcise the pent up demons, he decided to put everything into a letter instead. He felt it was only appropriate that this time he wrote with pen and paper. Before even starting, he realized that he didn’t have a place to send it. There was something about knowing it would be destroyed in the end that made it easier to write. He began with what had been bothering him most.

_When you left, you didn’t even say goodbye._

After that, he couldn’t write for a long time. He just stared at the words, and was awash in everything it meant to him, assumed it had meant to Garak, and everything they had left unsaid.

When he finally started writing again, the words came bleeding from the pen - anger and hatred and longing and regret. All the things he knew he should have said, with the added uncertainty of never knowing what the response would have been, or whether Garak would have wanted to hear any of it. The regret was in never having tried, at having taken for granted that there would always be more time. His opportunity had seemed endless until, suddenly, it was gone.

When he ran out of things to say because it had all been said, he understood what he had before him. It had taken him that long to grasp that even if the words went unsaid, it didn’t mean it wasn’t goodbye. He just hadn’t know what to do without one.

Putting his pen down, he folded the piece of paper in half and held it for a long moment before ripping it into pieces. It felt clean, like a break. There was a sadness, too, but there was no point forcing it away. It would linger for as long it needed.

And he promised himself that he would stop walking by Garak’s shop every day to see if by some ridiculous chance he was there. Eventually.


	11. Chapter 11

Garak’s only concern now was to stay hidden, stay on the move, and stay awake - whatever he needed to do to stay alive. The rain was unrelenting, a storm that was bound to last into the night, and likely the next day. That wouldn’t matter, though. He had checked the next transport, and would be gone just past midnight.

He didn’t know how he’d been found, or what anyone knew about him, or who knew it. Panic and lack of sleep were making his decisions more difficult, but he knew at the very least he wasn’t safe around others. For the last few hours he had been walking, away from his normal route, to the south instead, trying to get closer to the interplanetary terminal. Following his training and instincts, he avoided the trains and even the main roads, keeping to alleys and underpasses, trying to stay dry. There was barely anyone else he came across, and those he did pass were intent on their own effort to get out of the wet as quickly as possible. Still, with every passing glance, he thought for sure he would be stopped, as if the blood hadn’t yet dried on his hands, was still bright on his clothing, not washing away even under the rain. So he stayed to the edges of destruction, where there were far fewer people and more places to hide when he needed. The rubble was abandoned today - the dead could wait. The rain and the grey clouds, so close to the ground that they looked like they would suffocate the planet, made any effort impossible. Crevices and potholes filled with puddles of water, restless and muddy under the rain. He walked until he was dragging his feet, each step an effort, and then searched for a place to rest. There was an area of half-demolished buildings, officially abandoned and cordoned off, though he thought he heard some noises from them, children squealing, then an adult’s voice silencing them. Light came through one window, from a bonfire that threw dancing shadows on the ceiling, and he just made out a line of clothing hung inside. It seemed no way to live, but for him now it would be a luxury - one he couldn’t afford. Nearby, he found a wide bridge that had led over a stream, now rushing fast with water. It disappeared in the middle, as if it had been chopped off, and led now to nothing but rubble on the other side. Underneath it he found a discarded pile of clothing, some old sacks, and a wooden palette, but it was dry and he was exhausted, and could only hoped the former occupants wouldn't return. It provided protection, but more importantly cover so he wouldn’t be seen. Pulling the palette closer to the top, further out of sight, he dared to lie down on it, but wouldn’t allow himself sleep. He hunched his back to the street, hoping that it would keep him hidden through the damp daylight.

His head still ached from drinking the night before and not having eaten since. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the persistent patter of rain grated on his nerves to make him want to tear out his hair. His feet and his legs ached even as he laid there, unmoving. Shivering, he pulled his arms around himself. He had left his door without even opening it, unable to go back for anything, let alone a rain cloak. He had nothing but his identification pad and the clothes he was wearing.

It didn’t matter who had found him, he knew the way the cells worked - the Strikers, some members of the Order had taken to calling them. It was after the Desert Striker, a snake that could lie silently for months, and strike down passing prey as large as a riding hound. When any files of an Order operative were leaked, their record would be available to anyone who sought vengeance. All that was needed was to chose a name from the list, and if you were to find them, you did away with them. It didn’t matter for whom - any Order operative was as good as any other. Their mere existence had instilled a camaraderie amongst their victims, sympathized with silently by the rest of the planet. It was nearly impossible to tell who any Striker was or could be - the executioner could be a relative or a stranger, and trying to punish anyone to deter them merely strengthened their resolve by creating more victims.

There was always the possibility that he would still be found. If he were, he would plead, beg, negotiate for his life. But what did he have to offer? The lives he had taken he couldn’t give back. Nothing else would do. And why would it?

He could argue that he never laid a finger on his victims. It was true, but he had never needed to. They had taken care of themselves, with his prompting. It had simply seemed a waste to do to them what they could more easily do to themselves. There was a challenge in making it happen.

Again, the memories flooded back, joined this time by that of fellow operatives who had ended up at the hands of the Strikers. They were creatively done away with in much the same way they had made others suffer. The first he had witnessed had suffered and died in the cruel ways that she had inflicted death on her myriad victims. When they found her, gruesomely displayed, her eyes stared open in the same terror that he had seen so many times in an interrogation room. Garak rushed to the water to be sick, vomiting nothing but bile. The rain fell too loudly, and he pressed his hands over his ears and clenched his eyes shut.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and washed it in the water. When he sat again, the nausea was replaced by an empty burning pain, and his eyelids grew heavy. His one chance was that the Strikers didn’t operate off-planet. Theirs was Cardassia: if their targets chose to flee with their miserable lives, so be it - the planet was better off without them.

He must have fallen asleep, for he awoke in darkness. Checking the time, he found it was late, but not late enough to leave. The rain was softer, but still steady, and the thunder had moved further off. Another few hours until he could move. He tensed, and might have fallen asleep again - time passed now without logic. When he stood to set off he could hardly move, but pushed through the stiffness and made his way carefully to the terminal, surprised every moment to find himself still alive.

With the lights of the building in sight from around the corner of an abandoned alley, he made himself a promise that he wouldn’t watch as he left, wouldn’t have the last thing he saw of Cardassia being its surface receding before it disappeared into a backdrop of stars. He wouldn’t say goodbye, for he would see it again, it was just a matter of time. This wasn’t exile anew he repeated to himself. He dropped to his hands and knees, even in the wet and the dirt of this constructed place and promised the soil itself that this wasn’t a farewell.

His felt his very existence radiated his guilt, and was astonished that he hadn’t drawn suspicion from the thousands of eyes that could have been on him. It was with nerves more frayed than ever that he presented his falsified ID. But, even with his boots muddy and sodden, his lack of a cloak, and the dishevelment of his clothing, he drew little interest from those working the transport.

Despite the shuttle being only half-filled with a sleepy, silent group of travellers, he positioned himself at the back, pressed against the wall, with a clear view of the rest. He wouldn’t let his guard down, no matter the length of the journey and its tedious stopovers, not even after he was out of Cardassian-controlled space.

When, hours later, the transport reached its final destination, Garak and two others that had boarded part way through the journey were the only passengers left on the shuttle. Adjusting for the time, it would still be before dawn here, and there would be few people about. Registration was uneventful, and he finally let his exhaustion overcome him. Dragging himself through the empty hallways almost without opening his eyes, he knew each turn, every dent in the panels of the wall that hadn’t been fixed. He knew this prison well, and he hated it.

There were boxes of uncancelled deliveries stacked by the door, which he pushed aside to press his hand to the access panel. In the dark, the smell of dust filled his lungs as it hung in the air, coating everything just the way he had left it. Empty clothing hanging on the walls stood guard as he entered. A pair of mannequins in the corner bowed their headless necks in ghostly welcome. He turned away from them, tired and ashamed. Bolts of fabric lined the floor, stacked in a row, but even with their stiff discomfort under his back, sleep came the moment he laid down.

***

It was night again, he had remembered vaguely rousing at some of the noises of the day, but only now was he fully awake, and his stomach burned. He lay still in the silence, eyes open, staring through the darkness, ignoring it, hoping the hunger would leave him alone. When it wouldn’t, he rummaged through his shelves and found some dried packets of crackers and nuts that he had kept, barely edible, that made him feel worse than before, but stopped the pain at least.

All he could feel were the aches in his body. He had no thoughts, the future empty, purposeless. The persistent question, _what now?_ he tried to ignore. He laid down again, and sleep came to banish all thought.

When he awoke again, it was late the following day. He sat up, but didn’t move. He stared for a long time at the floor beneath his feet, knowing that nowhere on this entire station could he touch the ground. They were suspended in space like he felt in time, all that was beneath the floor were more layers of artifice, and then nothing. He stared at the walls, listening to the sounds outside, unaware of the hours passing until there was nothing at all. The only sound came from his own stomach, but, with no food left, he couldn’t motivate himself to eat. It was a lie that the hunger didn’t bother him, or that he could ignore it, but he denied it himself as punishment for everything that had landed him here again. When his it devolved into anger, he ventured out, through the same delivery door he had let himself in through, taking the same corridor to the dining area. His nerves were on edge as he past a guard who looked at him but took no notice, his presence odd but not suspicious. The soup spat out by the round-the-clock replicator made him wish he didn’t have to eat. He sat alone at a table in the dark wondering why he ate at all, why he was bothering to keep himself alive. He should have just waited to be struck down on Cardassia. Now, he could only wait until he was old enough that his pursuers didn’t care anymore, or until he was dead and it didn’t matter. He pushed his empty bowl aside, still unsatisfied. Everything was blurred by a pervasive sense of self-pity, which he dismissed with a hard shake of his head. He wouldn’t allow himself - he had given little pity to anyone else.

Sleep was fitful, and he awoke well before dawn, or the artificial lighting that passed for it here. He forced himself into doing something to distract himself from the again persistent pangs of hunger and the pains of abnormal sleep, so he set about dusting and tidying his shop. Once the scraps of fabric were folded into boxes, thread and buttons arranged, the bolts stood upright, he opened his doors before everyone else, hoping to move his tables onto the promenade before he was seen. It was the most he would do: be available, but only to those who were looking for him. He could no more handle the isolation as he could be overwhelmed by people. The area was nearly deserted, with only one other shop owner opening her storefront. He didn’t recognize her from before he had left, and knew there was no way he could have missed her, a rather portly Ferengi woman wearing an ill-fitting Bajoran-style dress. She would be as uninterested in him as he was in her, except for his difficult-to-suppress urge to clothe her in something that suited her better. He finished laying out his tables as quickly as he could, a few scarves and belts, and had turned to disappear again.

“Garak!”

Before he could react, he found himself in an embrace, then pushed away. The doctor held him by the shoulders at arm’s length, smiling, laughing but tears for some reason at the corners of his eyes.

“What are you - ? When did you - ?” His incomplete questions and bursting enthusiasm grated on Garak’s nerves, but he restrained himself from showing it. “I’m sorry, have to be in surgery until the afternoon, but please say you’ll wait and have lunch with me then?”

A silent nod was enough, his smile forced, but Garak allowed another embrace, putting his arms around his back in return. The feeling of comfort was gone as soon as the doctor was.


	12. Chapter 12

Julian sat over his lunch, not touching it, wiping the palms of his hands on his knees. Scanning the crowd, he couldn’t see Garak, and told himself for the hundredth time that of course he would show up. He was growing shaky from not having eaten for the last six hours, but he couldn’t touch his food until he knew. His stomach ached neither from hunger nor from spending the morning in blood and sinew, but from nerves. As soon as Garak sat down, Julian relaxed his hands, not knowing until then that he had been clenching them.

“I’m so happy to see you!” he said, reaching across the table to put a hand over Garak’s. With a gracious smile, Garak withdrew it and started to eat without a reply.

“What brings you back?” Julian asked.

Still chewing, Garak dismissed the question with a shake of his head and a wave of his hand.

“Not important, my dear doctor,” he said. “Tell me about yourself, instead. It’s been quite a long time.”

Eager to please, Julian found himself launching into a list of the events that had taken place at the station over the past months. He babbled about everyone who had left, and what they had gone on to do; he talked about patients that had come and gone, and his new staff. He left out any mention of himself, but Garak seemed to take no notice. Julian didn’t care what he talked about: it was enough to sit there with Garak regardless of what they were doing.

It wasn’t until he glanced at the clock that he noticed he was running behind and had hardly eaten anything. Swallowing a few mouthfuls, he made his apologies and asked if he would see Garak there the next day.

“Of course,” Garak replied with a smile, finishing his meal without hurry as Julian rushed off.

***

There was still the excitement that this was new and old at the same time, that it was actually happening, when Julian sat down across from Garak the following day. It was like old times, but it was also very different. He reached out a hand again, but thinking better of it, forewent any contact, and pulled back, running his hand through his hair. So little food was on Garak’s plate that he apologized for being late.

“There is absolutely nothing to apologize for,” Garak said, congenially, and deferred the questions back to him.

“I’ve done nothing but talk about myself so far!”

“That is because you’re much more interesting.”

“That’s a lie if I ever heard one!” Julian said, mouth half-full, trying not to laugh. “Besides, I can’t talk all the time. I have to eat!”

“Then perhaps you’d be interested to know that things are faring quite well with the shop on the promenade, despite my extended absence.”

“Not likely!” Julian laughed now in earnest. Unable to contain himself any longer, he burst with a flood of questions. “Why are you here? How long are you staying? For good? Why did you leave Cardassia?”

“So many questions,” Garak said in place of an answer, unable to disguise the weariness in his voice.

“Garak, what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, unconvincingly.

“You look sleep deprived,” Julian told him. “I'm sorry, I didn't notice. I suppose I was just so glad to see you.”

“Don't be. I likely won't be here for long.”

“Oh,” Julian said, and his face fell. “Cardassia must need you.”

“I'd ask you not to talk of that of which you know nothing!” Garak spat with vehemence.

Taken aback, and feeling his face turn red, Julian dropped his gaze, trying to be interested in his plate of colourless noodles and vegetables that had suddenly lost what little flavour they had. As he ate, he couldn’t help but notice that Garak wasn’t touching anything on his own plate. There was a gaunt look about Garak’s face, his cheeks sunken, dark circles under his eyes.

“As your doctor…” he said, instinctively.

Testily, Garak shot back at him. “You are not my doctor.”

“As _a_ doctor,” he continued, “it seems to me that you haven't been eating enough. Were conditions planetside that bad? Is that why you're back?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the planet!”

Garak had shouted so loud so suddenly that the entire dining area fell quiet. Neither of them looked up, but it wasn’t long until the murmur picked up again.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Garak said when there were no longer eyes on them. It sounded more like an admonition than an apology.

“Same time tomorrow?” Julian ventured. He cringed at himself the moment the words left his mouth. Garak looked past him, face like stone. After what felt to Julian like an eternity, he left without a word.

***

Garak didn’t show up for the lunch the next day, or the day after that, despite Julian showing up earlier and leaving the replimat as late as he possibly could. He had thought about passing by his shop on the promenade, but wouldn’t have known what to say. So he sat over his lunches, time stretching into infinity, contemplating his stupidity all on his own, not understanding quite what he had done. The third day, Garak showed up without explanation as to his absence, silently taking a seat across from Julian.

“I didn’t know how much longer you’d be here,” Julian said, after Garak continued his silence.

“It doesn’t matter,” Garak said.

“What happened on Cardassia?” Julian asked, his concern just as genuine as his interest.

“It doesn’t matter,” Garak said again. Julian was not deterred.

“What happened?”

“I did what I could, then I had to leave.”

“Why?”

“I'd rather not say.”

Julian pushed some of his food around on his plate with a sigh until a thought popped into his head, spreading a smile across his lips.

“They didn't want you back for spying, did they?” he said, conspiratorially.

“I thought you'd outgrown that stupid fantasy.”

“You haven’t changed, Garak. I’m glad for that. I think. Mysterious as ever. I’d wager you’re on some top-secret mission for the - ”

“Don’t!” Garak hissed through clenched teeth, unable to find any other words, “don’t!”

“It was only a joke.” A bit put off that Garak didn’t take it that way, Julian prodded him again, smirking. “But, if that was in fact why you were there, I suppose you couldn't tell me.”

“What need would Cardassia have for any of that now?!” Garak exploded.

Not expecting such fury, Julian retreated entirely. After some silence, he decided on a softer approach.

“What must it have been like, returning home after all that time? Was it everything you had hoped? I mean, except for... well, the situation is awful, just awful.”

Garak had stopped eating, and Julian blushed. Instead of chewing on his food, he chewed on his lip, wondering what they had ever talked about before. Perhaps he was just imagining that they had been friends. He couldn’t help but think that maybe he had imagined the whole thing, but then why did he have this feeling that he wanted to spend every waking moment by Garak’s side?

“Will I see you tomorrow for lunch?” he asked.

Garak’s smile was unmistakably patronizing. “I suppose you will.”

“I just want to see you before you go back.”

“I can’t go back.”

Julian was stunned by Garak’s unexpected honesty. He felt overjoyed, wanting to grasp his hands, tell him that it didn’t matter, that he could come with him, they could go anywhere they wanted, somewhere new, anywhere, together. But the pain in Garak’s voice was unmistakable, and it made Julian’s heart ache. He knew the admission must have been excruciating.

“Besides,” Garak added bitterly, “haven’t we already said everything we need to say?”

The words almost crushed Julian, but he had a moment of clarity. Whether Garak knew it or not, it wasn’t a feeling he was trying to impart, but to convey. It was in the dullness of his eyes, even when he tried to smile, in the way he sat, slightly hunched over, even when he pretended to be cheerful, neither energy nor excitement holding him upright. It was in his voice, every sentence delivered with a lack of enthusiasm, or, when it was there, fuelled by anger.

“You’re so sad,” Julian said with a sympathy that made Garak cringe. Distaste contorted into a sneer on his face, but faded away just as quickly. “I thought going back would have been good for you.”

“So did I. I was wrong.”

There was silence again until Garak snapped it with a simple question, asked maliciously.

“You keep bothering me about being back, but perhaps I should ask you why, when everyone else seems to have moved on from this place, you are still here.”

All rational parts of him told Julian to not respond, to leave this, he didn’t need to suffer what would most likely be humiliation, that he should step away now and not come back. Yet something compelled him to stay.

“I’m here because I’ve been waiting.”

Garak gave him a look of annoyance at having to ask: “For what?”

His mouth went dry and his heart beat faster. He could still leave. Or he could take this risk. Slowly, he reached out and rested his fingers on Garak’s cheek. There was a pause, Garak’s face blank, then he removed Julian’s hand, not brusquely, not gently, just slowly. Then he merely stood, and took his tray, and left.

***

This time it was Julian who spent the days eating alone. Hiding at work, he caught up on updating patient files while he ate something quick and unmemorable. Al tutted at him, and pointed out that seeing old friends usually didn’t make someone react like that. Julian stopped short of telling her she was right. She gave him a look when he told her it was complicated, but left him alone. When he thought about it more, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted complications in his life and there was nothing uncomplicated about this.

He himself was free from taboos that hadn't existed on Earth for more than two hundred years, but what did he know of elsewhere? Garak had seemed reticent, perhaps such attachments were as shunned on Cardassia as they had been on Earth. As unlikely as it seemed, perhaps they were absent altogether.

Worse, it might have been that he had misjudged the whole situation. It was entirely possible that his feelings were not at all reciprocated. Everything he thought he had felt from Garak might have been misinterpretation, the expression of friendship misread. Everything he had done could have been incomprehensible to Garak, and he didn’t know how to tell him. If so, he would put it right as soon as he could. He nearly ran to the replimat the next day and saw Garak sitting at their table, wondering when it had become their table.

“Look, Garak,” he said, putting a hand lightly on the back of the chair, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“What would it take,” Garak interrupted, sitting back and closing his eyes, “for you to simply leave me alone?”

Julian was dumbstruck. He dropped into his seat. Garak said nothing, merely pursing his lips and glaring.

“Technically,” Julian said, eyebrows raised, “I’m the one who shouldn’t be talking to you.”

There was a long pause. Garak hadn’t expected a confrontation, and it left him exposed. His confidence and disdain evaporated, leaving him cornered, like an animal, his breathing quick, eyes darting, searching, finding nothing. His shoulders slouched, and he was left with nothing but bare honesty. When he finally spoke, it was so quietly that Julian almost didn’t hear him.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Julian proceed cautiously.

“Well,” he said, “you have a few options. You could say ‘yes...’”

He gave him a moment. His heart sunk when Garak didn’t take the opportunity, but he persisted.

“You could say you’ll think about it.”

Garak couldn’t look at him, so he stared at the table in front of him, indecision written clearly across his face.

“And you can definitely say ‘no.’”

Julian held his breath, waiting for Garak to answer, digging his nails into his palms under the table. He wanted to take it back, tell him it wasn’t a choice, he wouldn’t let him. They couldn’t have come this far to end like this. He fought the urge to cover Garak’s mouth as soon as his lips parted, wishing he had never started down this path.

“I don’t know,” was all Garak said.

It was unexpected, but filled Julian with a shaky elation. If it wasn’t acceptance, then at least it wasn’t quite rejection. The relief was replaced quickly with panic at neither wanting to show too much, nor show too little, all the while navigating unchartered territory. It was Julian’s turn to not quite know what to say.

“You need some time to think.”

Garak nodded.

“Can I see you tonight?”

This time it was Garak who suggested it, and Julian who agreed without hesitation.

***

It was too soon, and there could be nothing good that could come of it, Julian thought, but at least he would be able to say he had tried. Tried, and failed, and was left with what he had started with: nothing. Garak would give him all the reasons why this was impossible, or why it was a bad idea - sentimentality at its worst. And no matter how much Julian detested him saying that, no matter how much he would argue, it wouldn’t help, and it would end. There was no way they could save their friendship - how had he not thought of that? He could use this chance to tell Garak to forget everything he had said and done, as if the past week hadn’t happened, and they could simply sit and talk about books for a short time each day, and otherwise live their separate lives. And there was no reason why he couldn’t accept that, even if his heart wouldn’t be so rational.

Why they met over food they no longer ate, he didn’t know. It was a habit, familiar and safe, and tonight it would give them the distraction of finding and ordering a meal. Garak was cheerful again in his dismissive way, which gave Julian the hope that, if nothing else, their friendship might be salvaged.

As they sat, Garak spoke of Cardassia, finally, but only within the realm of safety. He went on about the books he had read, some that he hadn’t touched since childhood. Finding them on the bookshelf just where they had always been, more brittle now, just the scent of them flooded his mind with stories wafting from the pages. He laughed at some of them as he recounted them to Julian, who sat captivated. It had been so long since Garak had spoken so freely and adoringly of the thing he loved. He wanted to just sit and listen, let the entire night pass without saying a word, without having to worry about anything else. Avoiding what they were supposed to be talking about. He thought that speaking openly and directly would have become easier with age, but it was flirting he was used to, and this was not flirting in any sense of the word.

Garak finished recounting one of his books, a fairy tale of sorts about siblings on a perilous journey that reminded Julian of _Hansel and Gretel_. He sighed as he took in the station around him like he was looking at the walls of a prison.

“I never felt compelled to spend time with anyone here until… Until I met you.”

It took a great deal of effort for Garak to say the words out loud, and Julian was almost at a loss for words.

“Then spend more time with me,” he suggested in earnest, not wanting the moment to disappear.

“How could we?”

“Just like this. How else?”

“You’re so young.”

It sounded like an excuse, and Julian wouldn’t let it pass. It made him grin nonetheless.

“I have been younger.”

Garak didn’t share in his amusement. His features were clouded instead by something unsaid. Julian became desperate.

“Why do you keep turning me away?” he asked. “Just tell me to go, and I’ll go. Tell me it would be too difficult for you, tell me you met someone on Cardassia, tell me your life has to be different and I’ll leave you alone.”

“My life has been different since long before I met you.”

“We’re back to this. Why so many secrets, Garak?”

“Because if you knew,” he said coldly, his entire demeanor changing “you would never treat me like this. You would pull away in horror.”

There was a hatred in Garak’s eyes from the confession that made Julian wary, that scared him, and he moved back instinctively.

“Like that,” Garak said, and it was gone, replaced by defeat. Julian shook his head.

"I don't believe you ever were that person," he said, leaning back in and continuing over Garak's protests, "and if I did, what would it matter now? You're not that person any longer - no, don’t, don’t look like that, I know what you’re going to say. But whatever you were, you’ve changed. Can’t you see that?”

With his shoulders hunched, Garak looked like a guilty child. Julian persisted.

“There was so much I never knew about you before - what difference if I don’t know about it now? Or ever? I don’t care about your past, Garak, I care about the future.

“The day you left,” Julian said, closing his eyes for just a second as if reliving the memory, “I don’t suppose you remember. Of course you don’t - you were caught up in tragedy and in a strange sense in joy. You were going home, whatever that home was. It was all you had ever wanted.

“And I watched you go. I watched you go and I felt ridiculous, but I wanted to run after you. And I wanted you to tell me that I should come with you.” Colour rose to his cheeks as he spoke. “I wanted you to say that you would show me your world, your home, but you left, just like that - you didn't even look back.”

The memory came back to Garak, too, and something dawned on him for the first time.

“And you waited for me,” he said, searching Julian’s eyes, trying to understand.

“You’ve always tormented yourself with the past - ”

“You can’t erase the past,” Garak said, but it sounded tired, was posed like a question, was an appeal. He covered his eyes with his hands, but Julian took them away gently in his own. Garak didn’t try to pull them away. He turned them palm up. Julian held them.

“You can’t erase it, but you can move beyond it. You can try to make peace with it.”

Garak gave him no answer. The station grew quieter as it grew late and people disappeared. Garak pulled his hands back into his lap.

“Let me walk you home.”

Julian wanted to reach out and take his hand again as they moved silently down the corridors. He had been so happy when Garak hadn’t pulled away as they sat, but now he held his hands together behind his back. The walls buzzed with the hum of the station itself, never fully quiet. He turned at his door, trying to stop the night from ending. Garak had dropped his hands, and he wanted to reach out for one, just to touch him again. Half out of boldness, half out of fear that this would be his last chance, he leaned in closely. It wasn't how he had hoped they would have first kissed, but Garak gave in, and the proximity and warmth felt very much like comfort, like joy. It lasted mere moments, then Garak turned and walked away and Julian watched him go.

***

Most of the shops on the promenade were already closed and shuttered. Lights were still on in one or two, customers still finishing a transaction. The tables outside Garak’s shop had already been pulled in, but Julian saw the lights still on. He had been alone with his thoughts all day, kept having to push them aside to get any work done, to not go mad. Not having seen Garak at lunch, he grew restless and worried as the day trudged on. He second-guessed himself, that he had scared him away the night before, when when all he had wanted to do was bring him closer.

As the area emptied of people, Garak emerged from his shop, pulling the door shut behind him. Julian’s heart plummeted as Garak’s first instinct, upon seeing him, was to turn away. But it was only a moment before he turned back, and made his way to him. He put out his hand shyly, and Julian took it, worrying that a smile might be too much, that it might frighten him away, but unable to help himself. He beamed.

Garak allowed himself to smile back.


	13. Chapter 13

There was a lightness that struck Garak, a sense of happiness that pervaded his entire life as he allowed himself to give in to what was being offered him, allowed himself to indulge in it. With Julian, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he let himself experience joy. 

With that joy, too, came discovery, and adjustment. Desire and lust carried them through the first time they fell into bed together, learning what the other wanted along the way, the pleasure only slightly more complicated by their differences than it would have been for anyone else. But as they lay beside each other afterwards, sticky and sweaty and careless, Garak realized he would have to get used to seeing Julian naked.

“You’ve got so much hair,” he marvelled. With a finger he traced it down from the stubble on his jaw and his neck, over his chest, along the line that ran down his stomach, around the swathe at his groin, and over his thighs. Julian smirked at his actions, but said nothing.

What concerned Garak the most, however, were his genitals.

“You’re so… exposed!”

That made Julian laugh loudly. “I’d never thought about it that way,” he said, reaching down instinctively to cover himself up. Garak played with his hands, still concerned.

“Are other humanoids like that?”

“From what I know, it seems to be about half and half...”

Having seen more different alien anatomies as a doctor, Julian allowed Garak his curiosity. He was perplexed by his navel as well, and when he asked about it, Julian touched him in the centre of his forehead, telling him, “It’s the same thing.” And he was himself fascinated by the unscarred smoothness of Garak’s stomach, a trait apparently rarer.

But even with the strangeness of each new discovery, there was such ease in giving way to distraction, and discovery turned to learning. Julian was the quieter of them both, guiding Garak with a soft pull of his hand or a gentle tug. Garak surprised himself, wondering if he had always known and just forgotten that he was so vocal, allowing his quiet moans to indicate the direction and intensity of his arousal. Through it all they found out how they fit together.

Garak quickly got used to sleeping next to someone, after the initial handful of nights where his excitement at the fact kept him awake until sleep won the battle and felled him. It was strange and wonderful to be able to curl around Julian, all warmth, and fall asleep without having to wake up in the dark and leave. He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to being able to still be there next to him in the morning. He hoped he never did.

It was more difficult for Garak to get used to Julian showing him affection when they weren’t in private: resting a hand at the small of his back and letting it linger, reaching across a table to push a stray hair back behind his ear, taking his hand and tugging him after it for a small kiss. The instinct to shrink away was still greater than the happiness of the connection, but he resisted pulling back, for Julian’s sake. And perhaps, in time, he would get used to it.

He wondered if he’d ever get used to being around Bajorans who didn’t resent or question his presence, who, if they had any misgivings about him at all, hid it for the sake of their friend. He tried to shake himself out of getting used to thinking of Julian’s friends not only by their names but their characteristics: the Vulcan Kunik, Matek Who Intrigued the Vulcan, Al the Other Human Doctor, Gale the Suspiciously Quiet Bajoran, the Eerily Similar Fraternal Twins whose names usually escaped him until he heard them again in conversation. He wondered if anyone had named him, perhaps Garak the Cardassian Who Didn’t Say Much, But Wouldn’t Leave Them Alone. And he wondered, too, if they were also getting used to having him around.

Garak knew, at the very least, that the one thing he didn’t want to get used to was still feeling like this was all a hoax designed to show him that what he thought was possible was really just a mirage. He didn’t know if the feelings that he didn’t deserve any of this, as transitory as they were, would ever go away entirely.

And so, perhaps because he had wished for it, the prophecy fulfilled itself.

He wouldn’t have to get used to any of it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner,” Julian said, hesitant and awkward in a way Garak never remembered seeing him, using the table between them as a shield. He wouldn’t even meet his eyes when he finally screwed up the courage to spit out his words.

“I’ve taken a posting elsewhere. I didn’t want to say anything because I wanted to try this - us.”

Through the shock - wishing he had known that this had all been an experiment, or that he would be given so very little time, scolding himself for having given in to stupid sentimentality - the only thought that stuck with Garak was that at least he wouldn’t have to worry about Julian showing him affection in public anymore.

“And of course,” Julian continued, as if to pour salt into the wound, finally looking him in the eye, “because it’s a Starfleet mission, only personnel and their spouses are able to…”

“I understand,” Garak interrupted, cutting him off. If he could form words still, perhaps he could walk away with his dignity intact. Julian said nothing, perplexion creasing his face.

In their mutual silence, Garak felt he was being laughed at. This situation, here, was surely more real than the fantasy that had preceded it, exactly what he should have expected. He was angry at himself for letting his hopes build when he knew they would eventually be shattered. His cynicism scoffed away the last of his optimism, reminding him patronizingly that he shouldn’t have let his guard down, that he should have known better than to believe that anything would - should, even could - go right for him. He read the sympathy, tinged with derision, on Julian’s face. Could he really have been so naïve?

Garak drew an invisible circle with his finger on the table, feigning nonchalance, as if for all the world he was thinking none of this, and their conversation was no more than casual information exchanged lightly. He spoke to fill the silence instead of suffer it.

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“What? But I’m not… Oh, Garak!” Julian said quickly, and grasped his hands across the table. “That’s not at all what I meant!” He kissed Garak along the backs of his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he went on, “I’m not very good at this. I wanted to ask if you would come with me. As my spouse. It’s sudden and a bit rash, I know, but... Marry me.”

Speechless, unable to remember a single word, let alone pronounce one, Garak sat stunned. Could this just be again a dream from which he would awake devastated? But it wasn’t. He was here, Julian was across from him, the candor in his deep brown eyes was real. Garak’s mouth moved, but no sound would escape.

“I hope that’s a yes?”

Garak nodded, through tears now, mirrored on Julian’s cheeks, laughing instead of smiling, feeling surprise and elation, and feeling like an idiot, but unable to care. All he could say came out in a whisper, frightened to speak any louder and scare off this life he thought he would never have, but more certain than any other words he had ever said before.

“Yes, it is.”


	14. Chapter 14

Their announcement, which Garak didn’t want to admit made him nervous to even think about, was greeted with much excitement. All that he and Garak had planned was a basic ceremony the evening before they were to leave the station, followed by nothing more than a simple farewell meal. But Julian’s friends weren’t having any of it, and persuaded them to change the ceremony to the afternoon, letting them know that their evening would not be free, but that they were not to lift a finger. Julian hadn’t thought that anyone would make such a fuss, but he was touched at the trouble they were going to. Garak was concerned at what they might be planning, but Julian insisted he should just enjoy the attention.

Attention was the last thing Garak wanted, but there was plenty of distraction to be found in their preparations to leave. As sparse as Julian’s quarters were, there was still an unbelievable amount of things he had collected over the years, most of which, when asked, he shrugged about needing to keep. What wasn’t sacrificed to the replicator - a smattering of clothing, but mostly books - they packed into a minimum of crates.

And then there was the inevitable.

Reluctantly, Garak dragged himself to his shop, still as lost as he had been since he returned, overwhelmed by the racks of clothing, bolts of fabric, notions, unopened boxes of shipments, corners stuffed with seldom-used equipment… He had barely touched any of it, nor did he care to. It was as endless as it was hopeless, so he decided to sell everything.

Since then, it felt like everything was happening too quickly: he had found a buyer for the shop with the first person he had asked. The Ferengi woman had been eyeing the space, but it surprised him that she had made neither objection to taking over the rest of the lease, nor even bargained for the price he was asking for the contents. His curiosity burned, but he didn’t ask her motivations. He was worried that he might be disappointed if she were to sell it all, or jealous if she were to keep it. He only knew that if he didn’t rid himself of it soon, he wouldn’t let himself do it at all.

It was with hesitation, still, that he raised his hand to the scanner to transfer her the biometric codes. This station had been cold and lonely and miserable for him for so long, orbiting in the middle of nothingness, taunting him in his exile. But the shop had made it somewhat more tolerable. It had been a job to do. Something to occupy his time. He might even be able to say he was fond of it.

He shook his head. This was the sort of sentimentality he despised, nothing real, just nostalgic fantasy, so he finally forced his palm against the pad.

And suddenly, the feeling that had been weighing him down lifted. He revelled in its departure, at the same time trying to keep from enjoying it too much: this contentedness might very well be fleeting. But with each second he tasted it, it remained. It was sudden and overwhelming, and the first time he had been so completely without worry, content that the future would write itself, would be what it would be, and it wouldn’t matter whatever it was.

As the Ferengi woman pressed her hand against the scanner in turn, the ownership passed with finality out of his hands. No matter where he went from here, he would no longer be tied to this place. The sense of release made him think immediately of Julian, of wanting him to be there, to kiss him with joy in that instant - this was his new vision of freedom.

As he walked back to their quarters with a solitary box, filled only with the few things he had kept for himself, it grew heavier and heavier. The feeling of contentment evaporated with each step. It was replaced by the trepidation of their impending wedding. The word - words: it, and its more permanent counterpart, marriage, made him lightheaded, quickened his heartbeat with giddiness. But dread pushed down on his chest, as he feared that this was an insincere union, only something that needed to be done because of circumstance. If his and Julian’s relationship had all the time in the world to develop, he told himself, it would end before it started.

And truthfully, he had never thought that anything like it would have happened at all, tying his life to someone else’s, and that someone being his own choice. A false but accepted marriage to a woman on Cardassia would have been easier to handle: the reasons for it would be clear, and the disappointment would be expected. There was too much at stake here now, and he didn’t want any of it, because how long would it take before it all went so completely wrong?

He stood at their door, staring at it, letting the panic hide itself, even if it wasn’t disappearing. There was no one who he could admit any of this to, because it didn’t seem like the correct way to feel. He wished he felt only the contentment and none of the doubt.

Walking back into their quarters, though, he felt safe. He placed the box on the table, and, not concerned with where the feelings had disappeared to, let them leave. As he busied himself with dinner, he forgot that they had ever come.

They ate in a silence that was comfortable, exchanging only looks, smiles, a stroke on the cheek, a hand squeezed. It became a game, though they didn’t really know how or why they were playing. It wasn’t until Garak was wiping the table that Julian broke the rules, idly speculating about what was in store for their wedding day.

“In truth, I’d prefer not to know,” Garak said. “If it’s going to be anything embarrassing, better to suffer it just the once.”

“Well, then,” Julian said, “I suppose I shouldn’t make you wait…”

Wishing he hadn’t said anything, Garak let Julian lead him to the sitting room where he sat him on the floor, making him take his socks off and roll up his pant cuffs and his sleeves. Even in his confusion, Garak obeyed, smirking to himself, letting Julian have his fun.

Julian disappeared briefly, reappearing with a tray with a towel, a glass bowl of gently steaming water, and a narrow silver cone. He put everything on the ground and joined Garak, cross-legged in front of him. Taking Garak’s arm delicately, he placed a small dot of greenish paste high up on the inside of his wrist. Curious, Garak moved to touch it.

“No, no!” Julian jumped at him. “Just let it be. I have to see if you react to it. Just leave it for a few minutes. Here, let me...”

He took the towel, soaked it in the water and wrung it out. Then he took one of Garak’s feet, and washed it gently. The sensation was strange - novel, and intimate, and sweet. The towel was warm, but his feet were cool when it finished.

“I’m sorry,” Julian apologized, “I don’t even know if this will work - how is your wrist? Let me check.”

He brushed away the paste that had left a small crimson dot on Garak’s skin. It made his eyes light up, holding Garak’s hand and rubbing his thumb over the stain, and Garak couldn’t help but smile back. Julian took the cone and started to draw a pattern on Garak’s arm, tracing neat lines. The paste looked like mud and smelled like wet grass, and Julian explained that it was the leaves of a plant that Garak immediately forgot the name of, and had been used by humans for millennia for lightening their hair and, more interestingly, decorating their skin.

“Where my grandmother was from,” he recounted as he worked, “it was used for a few celebrations, mostly weddings...”

Finishing the back of Garak’s hand, he turned it over and started to draw on his palm.

“The couple getting married would be decorated for their wedding… well, until about two hundred years ago, it was still just a bride and groom - only men and women could get married. But others would do it in secret, usually just painting their feet so they could cover it up in public. My grandmother told me that her great-grandmothers were some of the first Algerian women to marry each other in public, and not have to hide.”

Julian paused, still drawing, but unable to speak for a moment. He blinked a few times, swallowing before he found his voice again.

“It’s usually done by a professional,” he said, “so I’m sorry that mine isn’t quite as precise.”

“It’s beautiful,” Garak said. He watched in wonder as the complex lattice of stylized stars and squares and shapes formed like a lacy glove over his hands and fingers. More than anything that would formally join them the next day, this act of sharing, this most private togetherness was for Garak their first moment of forever. Julian told more of his grandmother’s stories, as he had every so often, sometimes the same stories he had told him before. Garak didn’t mind, though, and when it was something he had heard before, he just focussed on the sound of Julian’s voice. It was full of admiration and love whenever he spoke of her.

The stories about Earth reminded Garak of books he had read secretly back home, books that were dispersed among the shelves of Cardassia’s libraries, saved from destruction by surreptitiously defiant librarians, but ignored to keep both them and their protectors safe, in case there would ever come a time when they wouldn’t have to be hidden anymore. Writers had written for millennia of what might as well have been a different planet, with Cardassians going about their loves and their lives for thousands of years - no matter how they chose to live, or with whom - as if no one had tried to deny them either. And then, mere centuries before, so much had changed that when he read of the past it seemed like nothing more than a legend.

His hands and feet fully covered, Garak pulled his thoughts away from what had been, and turned instead to what was going to be. He leaned over to give his husband-to-be a kiss, the pendulum of his emotions on the upswing, thrilled to be acknowledging their imminent union for what it was, with its possibility, not a secret promise but something that would become reality.

Julian told him more stories until the paste hardened, and the brittle lines started to crack. They brushed it off off gently, and Garak marvelled at the stain that was left behind in the intricate patterns.

“It’s beautiful,” he marvelled. “Can I touch things without staining them?”

“Of course.”

He leaned over, put his hand on Julian’s cheek and kissed him again. Then it was his turn to disappear. He returned with a package, one of the very few things he had taken from his shop, one of the only things that had kept him sane with distraction in the last week, and set it down in front of Julian.

“It doesn’t seem as special as this,” he explained, tracing the pattern on his arm.

“Is that false modesty?” Julian asked as he undid the paper it was wrapped in.

“I suppose so,” Garak admitted with a grin. “I just hope you like it as much as I do.”

“Perhaps I should be worried that - ”

The surprise that rendered Julian speechless was plain on his face as he held in front of him a warm, cream-coloured tunic. It was embroidered around the collar and down the front in bright forest green and sparkling gold, and in a pattern that was reminiscent of the designs on Garak’s hands. Julian pressed the back of his hand to his nose to stifle a sniffle, and Garak rushed to explain.

“I had wanted to share some of my own family traditions,” he said, “but I’m afraid not many were passed on to me. And I know it’s likely not exact - I tried to get it to fit your body shape - and I didn’t want to cross any lines, but I tried to make it like - ”

“ - my great-great-grandmothers’ wedding pictures. It’s perfect. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather wear, or anyone I’d rather wear it with.”

They sat intertwined with their gifts for a while longer in an embrace that evolved into a kiss before finally slipping and stumbling over each other and into bed.

\---

The next day felt like a blur of procedure and celebration. It began in the afternoon with a straightforward but not entirely dispassionate ceremony in Commander Kira’s office. Garak had to shake off the initial feeling that it was something like a trial. There seemed to be no other plausible explanation for him to be the only Cardassian in a room of Bajoran and Federation officers. But those present exuded warmth and joy, and in forcing himself to trust it, he succumbed, and started to feel it for himself.

There were vows and witnesses and words. Garak couldn’t remember them all, but the impressions etched themselves deeply into his mind. As he stood facing Julian, he was struck by what he was leaving behind. In joining himself here, like this, he was securing himself a future far from Cardassia, turning permanently away from the home that no longer wanted or needed him. Who could blame them? But now he had a chance to start again, as if he had never been the person he once was, and would not have to face up to the deeds of his former life, for how could they ever be faced?

Here he was being given a chance to toss it away, like a stone into a pond, sinking under the water, its ripples fading from the surface, its edges easy to lose on the bottom of the river, hidden among the other stones.

Now he was being bound to another future, to his and Julian’s own, both figuratively and literally. In a tradition he assumed was Bajoran, and was immediately embarrassed for not knowing, Kira spoke as she twisted a delicate ribbon of deep red about their arms.

“This ribbon, like this ceremony,” she said, “is to show you how close you are now, like each other’s blood. But this is a bond of choice, taken freely. Even when the ribbon no longer binds you together, its memory will remain. And a part of it will remain with each of you…”

She snipped it in two places, and it fell to the ground - but a piece of it remained around each of their left wrists, tied there, not to be removed except by time itself.

All through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, with the food and the music and the stories and the dancing that had been prepared for them, Garak played with the remnant of ribbon around his arm. It disrupted the artwork Julian had painted on him, and he was curious which would fade first. The reds complimented each other at times, clashed at others. Every so often he would glance at Julian’s nearly-identical bracelet, and wonder at the ease with which he wore it, as it rose and fell gently on his arm, when he gestured as he spoke, at ease even with so many people present in their quarters. The deep red was warm against his gently brown skin - Garak felt his ribbon made his own complexion lose its lustre, rendering it flat like the grey of the lifeless.

The evening proceeded with talking and drinking, and all throughout with piles and piles of food. Eating was by far everyone’s favourite activity, and each person talked about the dish they had prepared, its origin, the matrimonial custom surrounding it. Garak and Julian ended up eating and drinking for their health, their fidelity, their prosperity, and a panoply of other reasons that were each unique, but started to blur after time.

Garak listened politely as each person explained their offering - eshak, a grain soaked in a sweet tree sap from Vulcan that Kunik humbly prided himself on having made from raw, not replicated, ingredients; a plain but harsh Trill alcohol, jebo, which Leovo had hidden from his sister, ribbing her about not being able to save things for a special occasion; a strong-smelling, slimy fermented plant shoot from one region of Bajor presented by Matek and scoffed at by Gale, who proudly presented a too-sweet dessert from his own region. Their feud grew in a few snide remarks and continued through disdainful looks until Matek raised an eyebrow at Gale pointedly, a gesture that Garak could tell meant ‘not in front of the Cardassian.’ In diplomatic Starfleet fashion, Julian declared each the equal of the other. But the debate was only truly settled by Al, who, upon trying them both in turn, spat them out and declared them to be equally disgusting. Everyone was relieved and sighed and laughed, and even Gale and Matek blushed, admitting that they had always thought them to be ridiculous dishes, anyway.

The only two people who offered nothing were Al and Julian, but no one bothered them about it. It was a peculiarity of Starfleet officers from Earth, how they were often reluctant to talk about their own planet’s traditions. They might have thought that too much information would somehow violate the Prime Directive, toppling the balance of the universe. Or it could have been they just assumed that whatever was done on Earth was common knowledge across the entire galaxy.

Skipping the humans, they turned instead to Garak, though many of them had not known any other Cardassian socially, and didn’t know if they were open to sharing their customs. But things were changing on Cardassia, and so Vernas, not one to hedge or tiptoe, asked him directly what he would offer up about Cardassian wedding traditions.

Garak took a small glass of jebo, and raised it with a smile.

“Nothing at all,” he declared, “and you can all thank me for it, otherwise we’d still be in the Commander’s office, listening to the third hour of speeches.”

Everyone toasted to that with him, and Al finally piped up with a wedding horror story of her own to share: sweating stains onto her bridesmaid dress stuck in a humid Beira church for hours while someone fetched her cousin from the wrong one she had wound up at on the other side of town. It started off a chain reaction of tales, each one reminding someone else of the ridiculous things they had been through. They outdid each other with comical tales of suffering through rain and sleet, even a sandstorm that lasted for a day; of forgotten clothing, dramatic relatives, too much indulgence, fist fights...

After a another glass of jebo and yet another of Leovo and Vernas’s stories, enthusiastically told in near unison through tears of laughter, Garak found himself light-headed and only half-listening. Watching them all gathered there, he was amazed at how easily they were drawn to each other. He wondered how many other times these same people - who for the moment seemed like the sincerest of friends - had come together with others, just like this, at postings on stations or planets, and shared the same stories, falling so easily into and out of friendships with those in the same situation, based purely on place and circumstance.

Perhaps it was their relative youth, with only some exceptions, that allowed them the luxury, and led them to impart every detail of their homeworlds. It might have been an eager, unconscious attempt to stave off their homesickness, retelling what they had done there in a comforting attempt to relive it.

He thought about what he hadn’t told them, that he found this type of marriage celebration disconcerting, premature. It wasn’t that Cardassians neglected ceremony - far from it - but a wedding was utilitarian, solemn, almost somber, with much talk, much promise and much warning for the people being wed. The real celebration didn’t happen until the couple had survived their first year of marriage. He chuckled to himself wondering what everyone would think if he told them - that it was cynical, unromantic, too pragmatic. When he was younger, he had thought so, too, and had wondered how the couple could stand it, all their older relatives admonishing them for impatiently sitting through the marriage ceremony, then tearily congratulating them a year later. It was only now that he felt a deeper sense of admiration for the level-headedness of the approach, and suddenly he felt very old and out of place. The vibrancy of those around him was frightening, he shouldn't be here, this whole thing was going to fall apart…

Just then, out of nowhere, Al interrupted Matek, who was telling a story that seemed not to end, by clinking her spoon against her glass loudly and repeatedly. Julian let out a short laugh and clapped his hands together, obviously party to the custom, but she had to stop and explain to everyone else what she was doing. Whether she had found the simplest words, or the mutual inebriation made her more comprehensible, everybody soon joined in. The cacophony of so many glasses was jarring at first, and Garak flushed with mortification at being asked to perform such an intimate display in front of a crowd. But the discordance set into a memorable harmony as he and Julian sunk into a kiss together.

Garak had lost count of how many more times they were summoned to kiss, how many more rounds of drinks were poured, and how many more stories were shared before the first person excused themselves for the night, quickly followed by the others. As they stood and said goodbye, each heartfelt farewell and each embrace felt too long as it began, and too short as it ended.

And then everyone was gone, and Garak and Julian were alone together, the silence buzzing in their ears.

They dragged each other to bed, and Julian fell asleep right away. Despite his exhaustion, Garak was kept awake by excitement. He stared at the lights in the wall that started very slowly to emit the glow of daybreak, running his decorated fingers over Julian’s hair as he slept. He wanted everyone back, he didn’t want to be left alone, not just when he was beginning to enjoy being surrounded by people. He envied their easy camaraderie, their ability to be friends with those around them just for the very reason that they all found themselves in one place together. He worried that he wouldn’t ever be able to find that bond, not again, not so late.

Julian moved against him in his sleep, slender limbs akimbo in a way Garak found incomprehensible. His lips were parted just slightly as he drew in soundless breath, and it struck him that he would never have to be alone again. A soothing warmth grew in his chest at the thought, and he pressed his lips to Julian’s forehead.

In that moment, he remembered Kira’s parting words, the only thing from the day that came to him clearly. They had said their goodbyes early, just after the ceremony, the three of them alone in her office before she hastened off to duties that would keep her from joining them for the evening. Their farewells were full of clasped hands and long silences, for what could any of them say to each other? Julian, having known her for so long, Garak, having fought with her for as long, and then having fought beside her. What could be said to say everything?

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be - we shouldn’t all be parting so soon,” she said finally. “You only have each other now. Take care of one another.”

Garak made a silent promise, finally lying down by Julian’s side.

For the moment he would no longer doubt, would not ask if he had earned this, or if he deserved it. He would just take it.

**Author's Note:**

> _A huge thank you to everyone who has been reading over the year I have been posting this, and to those who are just coming to it. I have cut so much from this, and changed it so many times, but there was one scene from the last chapter that I wish I could have kept in its original form. Alas, it ended up on the cutting room floor, as it were, but if you're curious to see what it was, I have also[posted it here](http://jenni-snake.tumblr.com/post/151260213202/moving-on-ds9-fic-behind-the-scenes)._


End file.
